History VideoGame / DragonAgeInquisition

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* TwentyBearAsses: One of the early quests involves hunting rams for their meat to cook to feed hungry refugees. You need at least ten whole carcasses. Thankfully, unlike many MMO examples of this trope, every ram drops a quest item.
* TwentyFourHourArmor: Josephine takes issue with Cullen wearing armor all the time, and discusses with a nameless Inquisition scout the possibility of calling in a tailor to have something made for him. Upon seeing him lose his uniform in a Wicked Grace bet, Cole notes, "It comes off! I didn't know it came off!" The Inquisitor can also fall into this, depending on what you choose to wear around Skyhold, and the definition of "armor".
* AfterCombatRecovery: Averted. For the [[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Regeneration first time in the series]], your health doesn't automatically refill as soon as the fighting stops. Downed characters are still instantly revived after combat, however; not only that, but (also for the first time in the series) they can even be revived ''during'' combat by the active character.
* AlasPoorVillain:
** The new combat system for dragons allows you to attack their limbs, much like ''Videogame/DragonsDogma''. The demo at E3 shows how taking out a leg causes the dragon to roar pitifully and start limping. The developers wanted to convey that while dragons are a vicious menace to society, they are still living creatures.
** This also applies to the new giant enemy. The way they hold their knees after several hits or indeed fall down on them as their legs are taken out is almost pitiful.
** The trope overall most definitely applies to Alexius. It's heavily implied that the only reason he joined the Venatori in the first place is because [[spoiler: Corypheus]] promised to help save his son from a Blight infection. Dorian comments that he used to look up to Alexius as a role model, someone who wanted to improve the Imperium and make it a better place, but all of that changed when his wife was murdered and his son infected in a darkspawn attack. If he is [[spoiler:executed following judgment at Skyhold]], Dorian laments that the man he used to idolize had fallen so far from what he used to be.
* AlienKudzu: The Red Lyrium sprouting up in places where regular Blue Lyrium normally doesn't would qualify, if it were alive and not a mineral.[[spoiler:.. except that it ''is'' "alive," and it's '''[[TheCorruption blighted]]'''.]]
* AllMythsAreTrue: A surprising amount of the ancient lore in Thedas comes into play during the game, though not necessarily as one might expect:
** [[spoiler:The elven Creators appear to have been real, although whether they were gods or powerful rulers is unknown.]]
*** [[spoiler: As of ''Trespasser'', they are unequivocally said to be mortals. Ludicrously powerful and capable of bending the Fade like paper, but mortals nonetheless.]]
*** [[spoiler: It is also revealed that the elves ''were'' indeed immortal, and that the Fade and the Waking world were one and the same. Fen'Harel/Solas did actually imprison the Elven Gods in the Fade by erecting the Veil, though rather than him doing so for the [[ForTheEvulz sake of mischief,]] he did it to punish them for being tyrannical oppressors who used their godlike status to subjugate the other elves, and for murdering the only one of them who wasn't a despot, Mythal.]]
** [[spoiler:Flemeth is indeed the Witch of the Wilds of legend, although the "demon" that possesses her is actually the essence of the elven goddess Mythal.]]
** [[spoiler: Solas is Fen'harel, the Dread Wolf, who accidentally destroyed the world in an effort to stop the oppressive Elvhen 'gods'. He has awakened after several millennia of hibernation, and is now seeking to restore his old world, which most certainly will destroy the current one.]]
** The ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC reveals that [[spoiler:the Avvar gods are all real. The Avvar are actually spirit worshipers, and gods like the Lady of the Skies and Hakkon Wintersbreath are "merely" powerful spirits.]]
* AllThereInTheManual: The events of ''{{Literature/Asunder}}'' and ''Literature/TheMaskedEmpire'' are the major causes of much of the plot, but never really explained in-game. The Orlesian civil war especially is only ever explained in the broadest of strokes, and the resolutions seem to rely on the player already knowing what's going on between the three main players. Similarly, large amounts of lore which had previously only appeared in codex entries are suddenly critical background info with major revelations about them making up much of the main plot (you have a working knowledge of [[spoiler: the elven pantheon]], right?).
* AltarDiplomacy: Several war table operations involve forging or breaking political marriages or betrothals to achieve your desired ends.
* AmazonChaser: Ferelden's nobility seems to have elements of this. A war table mission lets the PC send a champion to participate in a tourney. Although she doesn't win, she places highly and impresses a number of people. This results in six job offers and ''nine'' offers of marriage.
* AndImTheQueenOfSheba:
** Claim you're representing the Inquisition and a soldier outside of Redcliffe Village, who won't let you through, will counter with (paraphrased): "Sure, and I'm the Empress of Orlais."
** She's not the only one; among others, a rebel mage in Redcliffe has a similar reaction if the Inquisitor claims to want to help the mages. You get a scene like this at least once a game.
* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent:
** The Winter Palace mission is almost entirely political in nature. Although you'll still be murdering your way through waves of {{mook}}s at certain points throughout the evening, the primary focus of the level is accumulating blackmail material and political leverage by eavesdropping on nobles and collecting scandalous documents; meanwhile, the Inquisitor must also attempt to earn and maintain the approval of the Orlesian court, which is affected by their background, the things they say and do during the masquerade, and turning over the aforementioned blackmail material to Leliana.
** The Hissing Wastes are completely unique compared to any other map area. It has by far the fewest features, as it's designed to be a vast, empty and forlorn desert. The emptiness, however, serves to facilitate the quest. (See those massive hoodoos in the distance? They're ''important''.) Its primary quest is also extremely different from anything else in the game, and can basically be described as [[AdventureArchaeologist Adventure Archaeology]], complete with treasure maps.
* AndThatsTerrible: During the recruitment conversation for Sera, you can tell her she sounds like a petty criminal who wants to act out violent revenge fantasies. This gets no reaction from her, prompting the Inquisitor to add, "And... that might be bad?"
* {{Antepiece}}: The first ritual in the Temple of Mythal is short, easy, and required to proceed. It serves to introduce the mechanics for the harder rituals ahead, should the player elect to do them.
* AntiFrustrationFeature:
** Any decision that would result in a case of PermanentlyMissableContent is clearly defined in-game.
** Similarly, the Search feature is meant to avert PixelHunting by clearly telling you if there are interactable objects nearby. Originally this meant a specific sound when the feature was activated and an outline around objects within a certain radius of the character; a patch later added glowing spots that would temporarily appear on the mini map.
** Even in pitch-black caves and ruins, the Inquisitor and his/her party is always surrounded by a faint glow that illuminated the area in direct proximity to the player, probably because stumbling around in the dark without a light source (the only ones being infrequent veilfire torches and stationary fire torches) would be really damn frustrating.
** The ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC features enemies that very frequently drop items needed to complete your specialization training. In the core game, these items were extremely tough to find.
* AntiGrinding: If the player tries to grind in the same area, enemy mobs will thin out for some time, making it take much longer to farm XP. Even if the player does manage to gain a level or two, enemies will now give out less XP than before to the point of being almost worthless. Further, once the player is high enough in level, certain mobs will stop spawning entirely. Quests and side quests are the only efficient source of XP, but even those will vanish completely as the player nears the endgame.
* AntiMagicalFaction: The purpose of the [[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Inquisition original Inquisition]], before it joined forces with the Chantry and became the Templars and Seekers of Truth. What path the new Inquisition follows depends on your choices (and the first brand-new companion announced is a mage advocate, although one that previously supported the Chantry and the Circle system before the Templar-Mage war broke out).
* AntiMagic: Templars, natch, but a particular case here: [[spoiler:[[ComicBook/ThoseWhoSpeak Maevaris Tilani]] attempts to make a political stand in the Magisterium in Tevinter against the Venatori in a short War Table operation chain, but runs afoul of some of the "heavy hitters" that are content to let the Venatori run amok down south. Cullen's solution to aid her is to send a detachment of Inquisition Templars under disguise for aid. Where does this trope come in? Tevinter Templars do ''not'' learn or use the anti-magic abilities for which their southern counterparts are known. The attackers on Mae's estate are "flummoxed" (in Cullen's words) by the southern-style Templars countering their magic, and are handily repulsed.]]
* AntiPoopSocking: The time needed for your agents to complete operations passes even while you aren't playing the game. Since these operations can take several hours to complete, this feature allows players to enjoy the game without having to spend too much time playing to complete the operations. On the ''other'' hand, though, some of these must be done within a timely fashion to be worth anything; for example, the Ancestral Sword/Shield of Lydes is a Level ''Six'' item, and you could become overleveled as you do other stuff. Further, if you want ''specific'' rewards/outcomes for these missions, you need to use specific advisors for it - meaning that if two missions both require 12 hours or so, and you want the same advisor to do both, you won't be done until tomorrow.
* AppealToIgnorance[=/=]ThereAreNoCoincidences: In keeping with [[HaveYouSeenMyGod the theme of ambiguity regarding the Maker]], the events of the game are said to be His work for different reasons. When everything is in chaos and nobody knows what's going on or can offer any answers, rumors start that the Maker (or [[CrystalDragonJesus Andraste]]) was ''directly'' involved. Later, when the truth starts to be revealed, it's argued that because the coincidences are too timely, the Maker must have ''planned'' it behind the curtains. "The less He does, the more He's proven" is actually a core idea of the religion.
* AppliedPhlebotinum:
** Both exemplified and averted with Red Lyrium [[spoiler: when you discover that Lyrium is actually alive, the red stuff has been corrupted by the Blight, and that's why it drives people insane]].
** That would also hold true for regular Lyrium, which somehow manages to enhance a mage's magic powers and give Templars anti-magic powers at the same time.
* ApocalypseCult:
** In the Hinterlands, there's a cult living in an old fort that worships the Breach as a sign that The Maker is displeased with the Chant of Light. Their doctrine is to "wait in silence" for the day when He reclaims the faithful and wipes the world clean.
** A piece of background lore talks about a cult that appeared between the time of the first and second Blights, convinced that the Blight taint was an instrument of the Maker's will to destroy the world and start over again. During the second Blight, they placed themselves in front of an advancing darkspawn horde, waiting to be taken. Spoiler alert: that cult isn't around anymore.
** The Order of Fiery Promise is another cult that formed following the First Blight; its members actively tried to bring about the end of the world, believing that Thedas must be cleansed in fire in order to be reborn as a paradise. The Promisers were put down by the original Inquisition, but reappeared several more times, claiming to have taken up the Inquisition's mantle after the latter organization became the Seekers of Truth. [[spoiler:They pop up again during Cassandra's personal quest, and it turns out that Lord Seeker Lucius has joined them. The Inquisitor can even lampshade this: "Of course it's a cult."]]
* ApocalypticLog: More areas than not are littered with letters, notes, and journals describing bad ideas in progress and/or events going terribly wrong, often resulting in a minor exploration sidequest that ends in the discovery of the unfortunate writer's corpse. The [[TimeStandsStill Still Ruins]] in the Western Approach and the [[HauntedHouse Chateau d'Onterre]] in the Emerald Graves provide especially vivid examples.
* ApocalypseNot: Despite the Fallow Mire and Hinterlands being at the epicenter of the Fifth Blight, there are no signs that any of that land is despoiled, as is said in the Codex. In fact, due to the color and graphics overhaul, Ferelden looks better than ever. Keep in mind that extensively Blighted areas, like the Anderfels, possess regions so lifeless that corpses do not decay. In that context, Ferelden's recovery seems fantastic. On the other hand, the previous Blights also each lasted for ''years'', and the Fifth Blight is the shortest in history.
* ApologyGift: If the true account of Red Crossing[[note]]An event involving a LoveTriangle between elves and humans that is believed to be ''casus belli'' for the Second Exalted March against the Dales[[/note]] is delivered to the Dalish (revealing that elves and humans both played a part in the incident), they send a Mourning Halla to a human village as a symbolic gesture of apology and goodwill.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: You can recruit a total of nine companions, but as in previous entries, you can only have three companions join the active party at any given time. What's odd about this case is that even though you can only have three companions at a time, the others are implied to still be present during major story quests, in a BehindTheBlack sort of way. Talking to them after major quests has them speaking as if they were there, just not with the Inquisitor for some reason, and sometimes they'll just pop up out of nowhere during the quest itself. For example, if you exile [[spoiler: the Grey Wardens and Blackwall isn't in your party, he'll still randomly appear to ask the Inquisitor permission to stay]]. Additionally, characters who are not in the active party at the time may still express approval or disapproval for your choices. The primary exception to this is [[spoiler:the Fade sequence in Adamant]]; conversations afterward make it clear that your chosen party members were the only ones with you.
* ArcWords:
** "Asunder." Fitting, given that the sky is literally tearing itself apart after the events of Conclave, and Orlais has been plunged into CivilWar. It was also the name of an ExpandedUniverse novel setting up the CivilWar.
** "[[OhCrap Well, shit.]]" This is very much the Inquisitor's thing, invoking this at the end of Solas' and Vivienne's personal quests as well as discovering that [[SpidersAreScary Nightmare]] is nearby. Varric's [[GreenRocks personal quest]] is titled such, and in the ''Descent'' DLC, he echoes such sentiments on finding [[IKnewIt the Nug King.]]
* AnArmAndALeg: At the end of the ''Trespasser'' DLC, [[spoiler: Solas severs the Inquisitor's left forearm to prevent the Anchor from killing them.]]
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking:
** Empress Celene's trio of ladies-in-waiting do this, FinishingEachOthersSentences in which two of them list off serious issues, and then the third chimes in with something much sillier by comparison. Also [[BreadMilkEggsSquick inverted once]], with the third woman being [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness being very soft spoken and deadpan.]]
** The herbalist in Crestwood also tells us that, in addition biting a guard's head off, the local dragon has killed three horses, five goats, and two cats.
** A man studying rifts names four demons surrounding one Primus, Secundus, Tertius, and Dummy, because although the first three move around the rift in a set, almost guard-like pattern, Dummy wanders the area at random, sometimes spinning in place. A later entry turns this into FluffyTheTerrible, upon seeing Dummy attack a deer that crossed its path.
--->''[[{{Squick}} Deer should not bend that way.]]''
* ArtEvolution:
** ''DAI'' is built on DICE's Frostbite, as opposed to the aging Eclipse Engine, which helps to make the character models and scenery more detailed and realistic than in previous games.
** Elves were redesigned again, to look less human-with-pointy-ears than in ''Origins'', but also less anime-like than in ''Dragon Age II'', finding more of a middle ground between those two designs.
* ArtifactAlias: [[spoiler:Warden Blackwall is actually Thom Rainier, an Orlesian army Captain who ordered his men to commit an atrocity and not a Grey Warden at all. The real Blackwall died shortly after recruiting Rainier, giving his life to defend the man. Rainier, a fugitive, grew a beard and assumed the Warden's identity. After all this comes to light, the game interface and characters continue to refer to him as Blackwall. When asked about it, Rainier decides to keep the Blackwall name as a sort of title, dedicating himself to the heroic ideal Grey Wardens represent.]]
** By the time of ''Trespasser'', [[spoiler:Rainier has started to go by his true name, and all UI elements refer to him as Thom Rainier.]]
* AsTheGoodBookSays: The quests that deal directly with the Elder One are named after phrases from the Chant of Light.
* AsYouKnow: Many conversations go this way, if you're playing a character with a race/background that should know these things already. Inquisition Perks take this even further, allowing you to be "trained" in knowledge on a variety of topics. It's exaggerated in the prologue when Leliana makes a point of saying the phrase outright while arguing with Chancellor Roderick, turning around to give an AsideGlance to the camera as she does.
* AscendedMeme:
** In the first two games, the player character would use the same small, plain-looking knife whenever a cutscene death was called for. Fans decided to lovingly refer to this always-reliable instrument of death as the 'murder knife.' In ''Inquisition'', a rogue Inquisitor has to [[AMasterMakesTheirOwnTools craft a particular knife in order to learn the Assassin specialization]]. Guess what this knife is called?
** The "Ride the Bull" meme, which started several months before the game was released, is acknowledged by the Iron Bull himself if you romance him:[[note]]Though it should be noted that this meme originated from a tweet by Karen Weekes, the wife of Bull's writer Patrick Weekes, so this may well be a case of preemptive memetic mutation.[[/note]]
--->'''Iron Bull''': So, listen, I've caught the hints. I get what you're saying. You want to ride the Bull.
** Before the reveal of her name, Josephine was known as "Scribbles" by the fans, as she was holding a ledger and writing in her concept art. While Josephine is never called this in-game, Shaper Valta is given the moniker in the ''Descent'' DLC.
** Whether this was deliberately done as an AscendedMeme is not made clear, but a large portion of the fanbase fell in love with the notion of Cullen being imprinted on by a Mabari pup. In the ''Trespasser'' DLC, he finds a fully grown Mabari at the Winter Palace and they adopt one another.
** One of the trials added with the ''Trespasser'' DLC is Fair-Weather Friends, which doubles all approval losses from the companions. Its description on the selection screen is super-imposed over Morrigan's tarot card, in reference to the infamous "Morrigan Disapproves."
* TheAtoner: Very easy to miss, but in the Exalted Plains you can find the song describing what had ''really'' happened to the elven warrior Lindiranae in her LastStand against a human knight Ser Brandis the Silver Helm during the Second Exalted March. Turns out the knight did not want to fight her and even offered her to yield, but she (understandably) refused. She was then killed by a random arrow, and Ser Brandis, catching her as she fell, realized what humans had done (they almost wiped out the entire elven race) and was filled with remorse. He took Lindiranae's sword Evanura (and possibly her body) and buried it in the Emerald Graves, after which he was never seen again. It is strongly hinted that he either began WalkingTheEarth in order to atone or may have killed himself.
* AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: The bard song "Slightest" from the ''Trespasser'' DLC urges the audience to treat the elves better, as if the elves were ever motivated to unite against a common foe, they would have one of the largest armies in Thedas.
** Also counts as {{Foreshadowing}}, considering that [[spoiler:huge numbers of elves disappear after Solas [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt makes his plans clear...]]]]
* AwesomeButImpractical: Sigils, armor upgrades added with the ''Trespasser'' DLC, contain either powerful effects with equivalent debuffs or small benefits with near unworkable downsides. Some of the Sigils are frankly bad no matter what angle you approach them (the ones that only give +10% to an element at the cost of -50% All Other Damage apply here), but some of them can be useful depending on the creativity of the player.
* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: When the Herald becomes the Inquisitor at the start of the second act.
* BadFuture: Whether you do "In Hushed Whispers" or "Champions of the Just," you will be shown one.
** "In Hushed Whispers": [[spoiler:The Tevinter magister Alexius, who has hijacked the leadership of the rebel mages based in Ferelden, hurls you into one of these through a time-distorting Fade rift. It takes place solely within Redcliffe Castle, but it's enough to see what's happened everywhere: the castle is riddled with enormous growths of red lyrium, your two companions (besides Dorian, who time-traveled with you) are slowly dying from the red infection, and Leliana has been so horrifically mistreated by the Tevinters that she now appears to be a withered old woman. The inhabitants of this future make it clear that the Elder One's demon army has all but annihilated the civilizations of Thedas.]]
*** [[spoiler:Leliana at several points refuses to reveal information about the bad future to Dorian, pointing out that to him this world is an intellectual exercise he hopes to avoid, but to her it's been her living nightmare for the past year. She then invokes YouDoNotWantToKnow, as if what is seen already isn't bad enough]]
** "Champions of the Just": [[spoiler: Recruiting the Templars makes you face off against an Envy demon inside your own mind who creates scenarios to test your reactions and gauge your personality. It keeps asking, "What will you become? What will the Inquisition become?" by showing what it plans to do to all your friends once it replaces you. It succeeds only in giving away what its immediate plans are. If you die during the course of this quest, the NonstandardGameOver screen shows that it was able to do exactly what it planned.]]
* BadassGay: Par for course with Creator/BioWare. [[DefectorFromDecadence Dorian]] (Tevinter mage) and Sera (elven archer) are both gay and both playable party members. They are joined by Iron Bull, the pansexual Ben-Hassrath.
** Broaden the trope to Badass LGBT and Cremisius Aclassi might fall under it, being a transgender man who wields a ''really'' big warhammer in combat.
* BadassBookworm: An Inquisitor who takes all of the added knowledge perks is privy to a lot of obscure details which offer erudite bonus dialogue options and make for more informed judgments.
** Dorian as well; he's quite happy to go out and kill people who need to be dead, but he also literally lives in the library, initiates conversations about the deplorable selection of texts, and some of his wartable operations are centered around getting resources for him to study.
* BadPresent:
** For [[spoiler:Corypheus]], who wants nothing more than to return to the glory days of a pre-Blight world.
** Even ''moreso'' for [[spoiler:Solas, aka Fen'Harel]], awakening into the pure nightmare world that is modern Thedas.
* BarbarianTribe: There's a sidequest where the Inquisitor has to rescue some soldiers who were captured by Avvar barbarians. One of the Avvars, Sky Watcher, is a religious man who isn't too fond of what the others in his clan have done, and can join the Inquisition if the Inquisitor closes a nearby Fade Rift for him. The ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC further explores the Avvar culture, introducing both an enemy BarbarianTribe and a friendly one which allies itself with the Inquisition.
* BarrierWarrior: Being a Knight-Enchanter is ''all'' about this, as it's the only way to overcome being an otherwise SquishyWizard in order to bring that [[{{BFS}} spirit]] [[LivingWeapon blade]] to bear in a melee. All mages have access to some barrier powers, but Knight-Enchanter takes this and runs with it.
** Every Inquisitor can become this with the ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC, which adds the new Aegis of the Rift ability as a quest reward.
* BattleCouple: The Inquisitor and a romanced companion count as this. Can also apply to the Inquisitor who romances Cullen, as he comes along on a few quests but is not a controllable party member.
* BearsAreBadNews:
** As noted in several dev comments, bears are extremely dangerous, being responsible for a number of [[TotalPartyKill Total Party Kills]] among game testers. Great bears seem to be the size of Red Templar Behemoths, which themselves tower over normal humans.
** Invoked in-universe. Orlesian nobles will hunt anything, up to and including ''dragons''. The Codex states that Great Bears are the only thing which scare Orlesian hunters.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Averted with [[spoiler:Leliana in the alternate future during the "In Hushed Whispers" quest.]] Also averted with Cassandra, who has picked up a couple of interesting scars since ''Dragon Age II''.
* BedmateReveal: Possible with Leliana, but she puts a twist on it... the bedmate is actually the remains of the Duchess should she be killed, and your Spymaster can do this to scare foes into compliance.
* BeeBeeGun: It is possible to craft, upgrade, and utilize a "grenade" variety called "Jar of Bees." The final upgrade is "And Some Wasps."
** The ''Trespasser'' DLC adds a new crafting item, the Fade-Touched Beehive, and a new unique mace, the Cudgel of the Gold-and-Ebon Queen. Both have a chance to inflict the status effect Bees! with each strike!
* BeefGate: Though areas are open, some enemies (particularly Fade rift demons and high dragons) won't scale to your level, making it hard to access a sub-region if you can't beat the monsters inhabiting it.
* BelatedHappyEnding: [[spoiler:''Trespasser'' DLC gives one to ''Dragon Age II'' by making Varric the Viscount of Kirkwall. The beleaguered city-state finally has a proper viscount who truly cares about it. He's gotten the place back on its feet with commerce, advanced the rebuilding effort in the wake of the Grand Cathedral incident, and makes it a port of call for Hawke and all their traveling companions who are still alive.]]
* BeleagueredBureaucrat: Seneschal Bran of Kirkwall has been unwillingly promoted to "Provisional Viscount" of Kirkwall on account of being the only official that knows what to do to run the place, and has [[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry%3A_The_City-State_of_Kirkwall written an ad lib response]] to any "offers" of protection in the tumultuous aftermath of the incident that was the ending of ''Dragon Age II'', clearly expressing his exasperation in the ad lib defaults.
* BenevolentArchitecture: ''Inquisition'' features destructible environments. This means you can knock out supports of a bridge to make it collapse from under the archers standing on it, topple pillars to create cover from ranged enemy attacks, or destroy cover the enemies themselves are using. [[MalevolentArchitecture Enemies can use this against you too]], though.
* BerserkButton: Abound in your inner circle and top advisors. If the object of their berserk button is an enemy faction, those characters might have a minor bump in approval if you kill some with them in the party. Varric hates Red Templars (and Red Lyrium), Iron Bull and Dorian both loathe Venatori, and Blackwall naturally has it out for darkspawn. Cassandra and Dorian both have quests to destroy groups of specific berserk button targets, with their approval increasing each time you get one of them.
* {{BFS}}: The Knight-Enchanter's [[LaserBlade Spirit Blade]] is as long as a typical human is tall, is as wide as a human's head at the base of its blade, and is [[OneHandedZweihander wielded with one hand]] (and the off-hand at that). It helps that the blade is a manifestation of the spirit bound into the hilt, and technically doesn't weigh anything.
* BigDamnHeroes: Visually depicted when [[spoiler: your advisors and you first enter the Skyhold throne room after saving the entire Inquisition from destruction at Haven]] with appropriate musical fanfare. Paraphrased after an appropriate event [[spoiler: (defeating Corypheus)]], with Sera referring to the group as "Big Freakin' Heroes" if you use certain conversation paths.
* BigShutUp: When in the [[spoiler: Fade]], Hawke and the Warden ally eventually get into an argument over how much of their situation is the Wardens' fault. You can pick a side, suggest they wait until you're out of danger, or tell them both to shut up ''and'' save it for when you're out of danger.
* BilingualBonus:
** Understanding Elvhen leads to some interesting details about Solas, especially if you bring him into the Fade. You can also catch him outright lying about some translations.
--->'''Nightmare:''' [[spoiler:Tell me, Trickster... are you grateful to feel such loss? Solas (Proud), you appear not.]]\\
'''Solas:''' [[spoiler:Nothing is inevitable.]]
** Also, in the Temple of Mythal, Solas says to [[spoiler: Abelas: "Now the blood is finished." This might be a reference to blood writing (vallaslin), the facial tattoos which are revealed in the game to have been slave tattoos in ancient times; in other words, he tells Abelas his slavery to Mythal is over. However, he lies to the Inquisitor, saying that he told Abelas he "hopes he finds a new name," since 'Abelas' means 'sorrow.']]
* BittersweetEnding: ''Trespasser'' ends with [[spoiler: a new Qunari threat on the horizon, Solas planning TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, the Inquisition either at serious risk of further corruption or disbanding entirely, and the Inquisitor him/herself losing both the Anchor and their left arm. However, the game can also end on a hopeful note, since the Qunari's southern invasion has been thwarted and they've returned once more to their ForeverWar with Tevinter; the game implies there's still a chance to stop or redeem Solas; the Inquisitor can downsize or disband the Inquisition on a positive note; and depending on personal quest outcomes, the (non-Solas) companions can all lead fulfilling/heartwarming post-Inquisition lives and it's implied that at least most of them stay in close contact. One epilogue slide can also reveal the Inquisitor gets a nifty crossbow prosthetic! So while it's sad that TheFellowshipHasEnded, [[AndTheAdventureContinues The Adventure Continues]].]]
* BlingOfWar:
** Orlesian armor tends to be on the ornamental side of the fashion/function divide, but even by their standards, a unique helm known as Duke's Mane is very ornate.
** Additionally, armor and weapons crafted with Dragon bones will be gold in hue.
** Formal Attire, like what the Inquisition wears to the Winter Palace, can be crafted into field armor after that quest gives you the pattern. It's actually some of the best armor in the midgame, and oh so dapper. Pair with the Hat of the Inquisitor for an anachronistic 'cavalry officer' look.
** And now they've released an update which, among other goodies, provides the means for you to tint your armor in Skyhold's Undercroft. Any armor you craft yourself can have the color of its different components changed based on what materials you have to use - meaning that you can make any of your armor into BlingOfWar.
* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: The three advisors. Leliana still has red hair; Josie's is blue-black; and Cullen is blond.
* BloodMagic:
** Mentioned, but seen very rarely (save in "Here Lies the Abyss"), in a departure from the rest of the series. Even Tevinter magisters and rebel mages are not shown using it. As an example, Dorian, the Tevinter in your party, is specifically a {{Necromancer}}. He raises the dead in the same fashion as the Nevarran Mortalitasi, without using blood to control minds or summon demons.
** The closest we get to blood magic gameplay-wise is found in the ''warrior'' specialization Reaver. These fighters drink dragon blood and suck the life out of the enemies they chop up during battle. It's considered a very dangerous profession since the users sometimes go mad from literal bloodlust.
* BloodKnight: Shokrakar, a member of the mercenary group to which a Vashoth player previously belonged, has shades of this. She sends a letter to the Inquisitor asking for work - any work - so she doesn't have to listen to one of the lieutenant's war stories again. If the Inquisitor has Cullen employ them, Shokrakar sends a letter ''ecstatic'' that you sent them to fight demons. Some of them were on fire!
* BodyHorror:
** The Red Templars have been mutated by their use of Red Lyrium. These mutations range from red eyes and distorted voices to having red lyrium protruding from their bodies like spines to becoming a raging behemoth barely recognizable as having once been human. By all reports, they will eventually be consumed by the substance, whereupon their corpses are mined for more red lyrium. Sometimes a leader will force the process to speed up, making their underlings scream in agony and burst apart as the crystal shreds them from the inside out.
** Some of the new demons were designed to be very viscerally disturbing.
** The new ghouls are even more horrific, looking more like walking corpses than people. Their bodies are now skeletal husks and jagged fangs now jut from their mouths.
* BonusBoss:
** Most dragons are endgame-level encounters and aren't needed to complete the game, but killing them allows the player to get the best crafting materials in the game. There's an achievement for killing one, another for killing all ten, and a third achievement for crafting a weapon or set of armor from tier four materials - and some of the only tier four materials are the ones taken from dead dragons.
** There is also Imshael, sibling demon (*ahem* ''[[InsistentTerminology choice spirit]]'') to [[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins Gaxkang]] and [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII Xebenkeck]]. Like his predecessors, he's a very tough, very powerful boss, with multiple forms and backup from Red Templars. On top of that, reaching him requires a very long dungeon run through high-level {{Mooks}}, including several red lyrium-tainted giants that could count as bosses in their own right.
* BoringButPractical:
** There is a key or controller button that highlights nearby collectibles when pressed. Hammer it until your finger bleeds.
** The Energy Barrage spell can be unlocked during the prologue and stays very useful throughout the whole game. It lacks other abilities' more flashy features, but its cooldown is short, its element changes with the user's staff element, it can be used as a concentrated single-target attack or as fire-and-forget area bombardment, certain equipment choices can give it two elements simultaneously and [[MoreDakka double the projectile count]], and each of its projectiles can independently trigger criticals and masterwork perks. Used right, it becomes and stays one of the most damaging and most versatile spells a mage can learn, and it has amazing synergy with most specializations.
** The various Enchanter/Prowler/Battlemaster armors fall under this category as well. They all look more or less the same and aren't nearly as spiffy as most uniques, but they're the only ones that can accept arm and leg upgrades to add ''significant'' attribute bonuses. A properly crafted armor of this type outperforms any craftable unique by quite a margin.
* BossBanter:
** Alexius taunts the Inquisition throughout his fight.
** The Elder One rants about his impending godhood and has taunts tailored to the Inquisitor's race and choice of companions.
** The Nightmare mocks the Inquisitor and their companions (including Hawke and the Warden) with their worst fears as they journey through the Fade.
* BossInMooksClothing: Giants. The Rushing Sighs in the Emerald Graves area is particularly dangerous since it is home to several high-level giants. The giants' paths overlap, meaning it's entirely possible to end up fighting three of them at once, along with any Brontos that were caught in the crossfire.
* BrickJoke:
** If you bring Varric along while beginning ''The Descent'' DLC, he tells you the story of the Nug King. Late in the DLC, you can have an optional encounter with this Nug King... cue [[CatchPhrase "Well, shit" from him]].
** In Crestwood, a Rift has opened beneath a lake, prompting some members of the party to wonder if all the water is pouring away through it and where it's going. During the quest 'Here Lies the Abyss', [[spoiler:the party winds up in the Fade and encounters a large pool of water. And a few boats. Apparently ''that's'' where it went.]]
* BrokenBridge: Most main quests require a certain amount of Power to activate, which can be obtained from completing sidequests. This is also true of several of the side quests accessible from the war council table, some of which involve ''literal'' broken bridges.
* BulletTime:
** Haste, a Focus spell for mages, slows down time for your enemies while allowing your squad to move normally.
** Rogues with the Tempest specialization have access to the ability "Flask of Lightning", which slows down time for everyone but you to 40% normal time for 5 seconds (or as slow as ''1%'' for 8 seconds with its upgrade). This is an interesting sight when an AI controlled character uses Flask of Lightning. From the player's perspective, they are twitching like crazy and zipping around because their movements are far too fast for the animations to be clearly visible.
* TheBusCameBack: Morrigan, Leliana, and Cullen from previous ''Dragon Age'' games return to serve as allies of the Inquisition, along with Varric and Cassandra as companions. Alistair, Anora, [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII Hawke]], and several other characters from earlier titles may appear, depending on your world state.
* CainAndAbel: The Tomb of Fairel questline in The Hissing Wastes establishes one of these plots. After the death of the Paragon Fairel, his sons shared rulership over the surface thaig he established; however, the brothers had very different ruling styles and eventually began to squabble. One brother killed the other, but later regretted it, and built monuments to his father and brother.
* CallARabbitASmeerp: ''Inquisition'' introduces livestock called "druffalos" that strongly resemble bison, albeit with large fangs and dragonlike horns. Averted with most other real-world animals, such as rams, fennec foxes, etc.
* CallBack: Many.
** The Temple of Sacred Ashes from the first game returns as the site of a major peace summit. You see it annihilated by the exploding Breach in the title menu background once you click "New Game".
** In ''Origins'', Sten comments that people cannot simply be summarized like "The elves are a lithe, pointy eared people who excel at poverty." This game's character selection process contains this: "Elves are a historically oppressed people, distinguishable by their pointed ears and lithe frames."
** If you side with the mages, your advisors have a discussion about how to get forces inside Redcliffe Castle. Leliana recommends sending a small group in through a secret tunnel under the old windmill. She knows about this tunnel because it's the same one that the Warden uses in ''Origins'' to infiltrate the castle during the Redcliffe arc.
** There's an entire line of missions on the war map related to Varric using Inquisition resources to track down the author publishing the knockoff ''Hard in Hightown 2'' books that he potentially found in ''Mark of the Assassin''. [[spoiler:The culprit turns out to be Worthy, the dwarven rune crafter met at the very beginning of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', who is royally pissed about the business he lost because Varric introduced Hawke to Sandal.]]
** Apparently Charade, Gamlen's daughter, is one of the Friends of Red Jenny.
** If you bring Varric along to the fight with Corypheus in ''Dragon Age II'''s ''Legacy'' DLC, he eventually remarks, "If he pulls a dragon out of his ass, I'm done." [[spoiler:If you use the Guardian of Mythal against Corypheus in this game and bring Varric along for the final boss, after the Guardian goes down, Varric asks the Inquisitor if s/he has another dragon to pull out of his or her ass. Not to mention the fact that, after having resurrected himself after fighting Hawke in "Legacy," Corypheus now ''actually has'' a dragon.]]
** During the quest [[MasqueradeBall "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts,"]] players of the ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeII Mark of the Assassin]]'' DLC may recognize the bizarre clown-assassins as Harlequins, members of an elite unit of the Orlesian military. [[spoiler:This is one of the hints that the plot against Celene is orchestrated by a noble, as is the fact that a servant encounters one while searching Florianne's rooms.]]
** Also from "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts," you can hear a couple of party guests fervently hoping that the De Launcets (from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' and ''Mark of the Assassin'') didn't make it to the party.
** From the aftermath of "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts", it's possible to [[spoiler: put the Duchess's head on a pike as a warning]]. Cullen laments this action and says that there's a perfectly good "Don't" sign in Kirkwall he could borrow... [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII to which Varric commands the rights.]]
** Amongst [[spoiler: the eluvians in the Crossroads is Merrill's broken one from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII''. Whether that means she fixed it but didn't find the key is still up in the air.]]
** Carroll, the obstructive Templar from ''Origins'' (the one you could bribe with cookies), apparently wound up promoted in the intervening years. [[spoiler:He's now Knight-Captain of the Red Templars. If you complete all of the Red Templar quests in the Emerald Graves, you end up killing the horror he's become.]] ''[[AllThereInTheManual The World of Thedas, vol. 2]]'' reveals just how he reached this point. That, or it raises even more questions.
** When asked about her time in Denerim, Sera is typically evasive, saying she spent most of her time burying stolen things and 'playing with small painted boxes.' The 'Friends of Red Jenny' quest in ''Origins'' involved taking a small painted box from the First Enchanter's office and delivering it to a silent, unseen contact. [[note]]Wait, silent? Couldn't have been Sera.[[/note]]
** After Hawke appears, Cassandra asks Varric if Hawke would give her an autograph. Varric reminds Cassandra that her copy of ''The Tale of the Champion'' [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII has a big hole in it]]. One of his party banter dialogues also references this, as Varric warns Blackwall that Cassandra might "stab you in the book".
** Sera comments on how elves are so bony, listing almost the same exact reasoning Oghren offered when he told Velanna why he liked Dwarven and Human women more.
** Morrigan once again introduces herself with the line "Well, well, what have we here?" just like she did in ''Origins'' and her mother did in VideoGame/DragonAgeII. She even says it while walking down the stairs, reminiscent of her first appearance in ''Origins''.
** Morrigan also wears the exact same outfit Leliana suggested while stirring her up in the first game, and if Morrigan has a son it turns out it was his idea, with Leliana being told to stay away from him [[HypocriticalHumor as she is apparently a bad influence.]]
** Sketch, one of Leliana's companions from the "Leliana's Song" DLC in ''Origins'', has apparently joined the mage rebellion. You can get a message from him during one of the War Table missions.
** If Varric and Iron Bull are in the party, the two might talk about the old Arishok and the new one ([[spoiler:Sten from Origins]]). Varric also asks Bull if he knows Tallis since they're both Ben-Hassrath, to which he states that he doesn't.
** The Inquisitor can walk in on Mother Giselle and Dorian having an argument, in which she tells him, "Your glibness does you no credit." If it sounds like the same line a disgruntled mage directs at Alistair in his EstablishingCharacterMoment, [[CaptainObvious that's because it is]].
*** Cassandra ''also'' says this to Dorian during one of their party banter dialogues.
** If the Inquisitor is an Elf and [[spoiler: imports a world state in which Morrigan had a son]], s/he can encounter a human child at Skyhold garden. The boy remarks that his mother didn't tell him the Inquisitor was an elf. A humorous Inquisitor can quip, "The ears gave me away, didn't they?" Very reminiscent of an Elven Warden who can run into a little boy in Lothering, who asks a similar question ("Are you really an elf?"), to which a humorous Warden could give a similar answer. ("Did the ears give me away?")
** Dagna, the dwarf girl who wanted to study magic theory in ''Origins'', returns as the Inquisition's new "Arcanist," a profession she made up because no one quite like her has existed before.
** The sword Certainty, which is dropped by [[spoiler:Samson]], according to its description, [[BlatantLies cannot]] be [[Videogame/DragonAgeII Meredith's]] red lyrium blade reborn. It even has the same model.
** The perk "Deft Hands, Fine Tools" that upgrades rogues' ability to pick locks is named after two talent tiers in the lockpicking line in the first game.
** In a darker example, if Hawke and Anders are still in a relationship, the Inquisitor can ask why they're not together. Hawke explains that Anders is being kept away from the action to prevent a repeat of [[BrainwashedAndCrazy what happened the last time]] Anders got too close to [[spoiler:Corypheus.]] (This will be the explanation even if Anders was not in the party during ''Legacy''.)
** When Blackwall is recruited, the Inquisitor can ask what one Grey Warden can do. Blackwall points out that they can "save the [[PrecisionFStrike fucking]] world if pressed," which is exactly what the player did in ''Origins''.
** When making your way through various noble households, those who played "The Last Court" on the ''Dragon Age Keep'' website may recognize some of the portraits as being those of characters from that game. And the Dowager herself appears in person at the Halamshiral ball!
** Sera uttering "Say what" to the UnknownRival is not the first time a character induced another to say "What". The player can choose a dialogue option in the first game to jokingly trip up a Chanter in Lothering: "A chanter says 'what?'"
** One of the Fade memories Solas can share is about a hut in the Korcari Wilds that the Chasind still refuse to go near; even though the old woman who lived there has been gone for years, they still fear she might return.
** When storming Griffon Wing Keep, the Venatori boss there drops "Kitty's Collar", a unique pendant-slot accessory item. The description of it mentions Honnleath, and a little girl... [[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Kitty What "kitty" could it be referring to?]]
** Dorian typically starts off non-cinematic conversations with Flemeth's "Questions, questions." Once his approval is raised, he switches to Wynne's "What's on your mind?"
** Leliana hints at a party she and Josephine attended, alluding that [[NoodleIncident it's not a real party unless someone's undergarments are pinned to a Chantry board.]] Leliana did something similar back in [[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins her days as a bard]]; apparently she decided to recreate the event later. For reasons known only to her, Leliana also investigates the undergarments of members of the Inquisition, a la [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 Kasumi,]] and an exchange between her, Sera, and a messenger reveals she knows Josie's by sight and actually does intend to recreate the event.
** If Blackwall is brought to the Hissing Wastes without Varric or Iron Bull, he tells a story about the last time he was on a mission in a desert. If Sera is also in the party when Blackwall gets to the part about ghasts trying to drag him and his men off to some pit, Sera makes the same "ghast-hole" observation that Varric or Isabela did during ''Mark of the Assassin''.
** Also from [=MoTA=], if you import a Snarky!Hawke into the game, Varric can recount how the Duke... [[Series/CSIMiami had fallen from grace.]]
** When Cullen is fending off suitors during the Halamshiral ball, one of the [[EvenTheGuysWantHim men amongst them]] does a grab-ass. When Cullen incredulously reacts, the man responds, "I am a weak man." This is Hardened Alistair's receptive response to the prospect of a threesome between Love Interest Female Warden, himself, and [[PirateGirl Isabela]] in the first game.
** Leliana's offer to train you as a bard basically amounts to "Don't," based on the idea of eventual betrayal. She'd know all too well about this.
** Cole mentions Cullen as an example of a Templar who (now) "[remembers] that mages are people."
** As with the banter in which Alistair asks Zevran about Antivan Crows, when Cassandra starts to ask Dorian about Templars in the Imperium, he promptly and preemptively informs her that all the rumors are true, especially ''[[NoodleImplements that]]'' bit.
* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: When you sit in judgement, there is often a more pragmatic approach to conscript the judged into the Inquisition. Usually, the prospective recruits are former Venatori agents/allies who have had their eyes opened.
* CaptainObvious: "That's what happens when you try to change things. Things [[FromBadToWorse change]]." Eloquence, thy name is Hawke. It would be {{Narm}}tastically funny if not for the implication that Hawke [[HeroicSelfDeprecation blames]] [[FailureHero him/herself]] for ''everything'' that happened in ''DAII'', including [[spoiler: releasing Corypheus, the current BigBad]]. Hard to believe all this started because Hawke wanted to evade the Templars of Kirkwall.
* CartwrightCurse: The Dowager, an Orlesian noblewoman at the Ball who's been widowed so many times it's absurd. Walk past her repeatedly to hear her describing the different fates her husbands have suffered.
* CatapultNightmare: It isn't a nightmare, but the Inquisitor still catapults awake suddenly after Solas [[spoiler: has a conversation in a Fade dream after arriving at Skyhold. Solas prompts the Inquisitor to wake up via a conversational segue.]]
-->'''Solas''': [[spoiler: That's a matter of debate -- probably best discussed after you... ''wake up.'']]
* CentralTheme: Faith, and what it means to have faith in something. And its equal opposite: fear, and what fear can drive a person to do.
** Related to the above is fanaticism = bad. We have the Templars and their belief they are just, the mages tired of being oppressed, the Inquisition and their efforts to set things right, the Dalish and their customs to be respected on pain of death, the Qunari and their views of executing allies and being ex-communicated, and then we get to specific characters: it's [[TheLongList a long list.]]
* ChainmailBikini: Its alternate trope name "Breast Plate" is discussed, with Iron Bull commending Cassandra for not going for armor with cleavage that is one good warhammer strike away from jamming into her sternum. Additionally, it's deconstructed in the requisition crafting display model for "Ceremonial Armor", with a desiccated female corpse riddled with arrows wearing only a scalemail bikini.
* ChainPain:
** Warriors now have the option to yank opponents towards them using chains.
** Rogues can gain the ability to yank ''themselves'' towards opponents this way, too.
* ChangingGameplayPriorities: During Act 1 in Haven, you have to make do with limited areas to explore and harvest for herbs and materials, crafting options aren't too good, and companions need certain builds in order to survive. The game changes a lot when you get to Skyhold in Act 2. At this point you have access to specializations for each party member, can cast [[LimitBreak Focus skills]], gain access to masterwork crafting with rare Fade-Touched materials and more powerful schematics, and more levels to explore for rare herbs and rare minerals. Herbs can also be grown at Skyhold if you find their seeds.
* CharacterCustomization: And now you can change even subtle details, like the inner and outer iris colors of your Inquisitor's eyes.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: When the Friends of Red Jenny were introduced in ''Origins'', they were portrayed as a ruthless group that threatened to kill contacts who would renege on jobs. The Friends in ''Inquisition'' are much more benevolent and focus on sticking it to [[AristocratsAreEvil malevolent nobles]]. Sera explains that the Denerim Friends at that time were strange and were probably using the Jennys for their own ends.
* CheatersNeverProsper: Against Cullen at Fantasy Chess, nope. Dorian tried this against him. You can too if you choose, and that's how you find out Dorian did too: because Cullen still trounced both of you despite it. If you play fairly, however, you will win. (You can also cheat to let him win, although it's heavily implied that he knows exactly what you're doing and is very amused.)
* ChekhovsGun:
** The relationship between spirits and demons has been hinted at since ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins Origins]]''. During the Magi Origin, what appears to be a ''Pride'' demon[[note]]the true form of "Mouse" is not shown[[/note]] congratulates you on your ''Wisdom'' not to trust a stranger. Also, in ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeII DAII]]'' there's [[ThePaladin Justice]]/[[WellIntentionedExtremist Vengeance]]. Solas finally explains that their nature depends on the one who summons and/or binds them as well as for what purpose. Thus Cole, who is a spirit of Compassion, is in danger of becoming a demon if he is corrupted.
--->'''Cassandra:''' How does Compassion become such a deadly killer?\\
'''Cole:''' [[BerserkButton Templars]].
** Similarly, early in the game in Haven, Solas mentions having made friends with spirits of Wisdom and Purpose, where others may have seen demons of Pride and Desire. Later, you get to meet the former [[spoiler:''after'' she's been turned into a Pride demon.]]
* CivilWar: The ongoing Mage and Templar War, an upheaval in Orlais foreshadowed in ''II'' and ''Asunder'', and the beginnings of an elf rebellion (also in Orlais). The Inquisitor ends up choosing which sides to support.
* CleverCrows:
** Technically they're ravens, but Leliana's messenger birds are everywhere and will observe what you do, and you can go right up to some and they won't fly off. They have a uncanny ability to know just where you are and what you're doing, even physically entering the Fade themselves. [[spoiler: If Leliana was killed during ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' and not made Divine in this game, the Leliana we see in ''Inquisition'' turns out to be a Fade spirit similar to Cole, and will disappear in a great cloud of ravens once she's no longer needed. This adds a certain amount of FridgeBrilliance to the details about the ravens.]]
** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in an old letter found in the Fade. The writer urges their son to stay the hell away from the tainted battlefields of the Second Blight near Starkhaven until he can see crows approaching the area again. Apparently, crows know about the danger of darkspawn-tainted ground, can sense its presence and are clever enough to keep their distance.
* CloudCuckoolander: The nine Specialization trainers (only three of whom will appear in any one playthrough) are all on the batty side, some more than others. Special mention must go to "Your Trainer," who teaches a mage Inquisitor how to gain the Rift Mage specialization; because of what she had to endure to gain the knowledge she imparts, she no longer even remembers her own name.
* CoDragons: Downplayed. The BigBad technically has two high-ranking subordinates to lead his Red Templar and Venatori forces - but you'll only ''see'' one of them in a given playthrough, depending on which side in the Mage-Templar war you recruit. The leader of the other side will be the one you encounter, while the would-be leader of your recruits will fall out of favor and be largely ignored.
* ColdFlames: Veilfire has a lot of uses, but burning things doesn't seem to be one of them. Justified by the codex entry, which explains that, in simplest terms, veilfire isn't actually fire - it's more like a ''memory'' of fire, and mages often use it for a light source because it requires no fuel and never burns out.
* CollectionSidequest: Tons of them. The game tracks how many shards, landmarks, liquor bottles, Skyhold furnishings, banners, mosaics, herb seeds, and songs you collect. Completing a collection gets you a small amount of influence and power. With the Game of the Year edition, the Golden Nug feature allows some of these collections to be transferred across multiple playthroughs, granting newer Inquisitors that influence and power much earlier in the game.
* CombatDiplomacyStealth:
** While the actual gameplay is slanted heavily towards combat, the title organization has equal access to all three modes of expanding its influence, with an advisor/branch leader attached to each one: Cullen is the General of the Inquisition's Army, Josephine leads the Diplomatic Corps, and Leliana is the Spymaster.
** There are a number of battles that can be avoided entirely through other means.
** Each of the three fortresses outside Skyhold that can be claimed for the Inquisition is outfitted for one of these means; Caer Bronach in Crestwood is a major espionage outfit, operated by an elf woman with a spy-op name of "Charter." Griffon Wing Keep has soldiers drilling all over inside and is operated by Cullen's second-in-command, Knight-Captain Rylen. Suledin Keep functions as a gathering spot for many of the resources that are gathered from Emprise du Lion, and is headed by an Orlesian nobleman, Baron Edouard Desjardins.
* CombatSadomasochist: The Reaver specialization is all about this. Many powers revolve around boosting damage potential and inciting terror as your character takes more damage. The most powerful (non-LimitBreak) talent in the Reaver talent tree actually harms the user.
* CommanderContrarian: The Orlesian Court will verbally disapprove of and reject the Inquisitor, no matter what type you're playing. The worst example is to play as a Qunari Mage - two things they hate in great measure. The best combination is playing as a Human Warrior/Rogue, because they are a BadassNormal ''and'' from the ranks of nobility. Even then, however, they will snub you for being a "Marcher."
* CompensatingForSomething: Varrics insinuates this to the dwarves when he lampshades that for a race without mages, dwarven technology contains an awful lot of magic.
--> '''Varric''': So perhaps we can't shoot lightning or freeze someone's ass off, but here, take a rune that sets your sword on fire.
* ConceptsAreCheap:
** Discussed. The Inquisition's purpose is to "restore order in a world gone mad", but the problem is, no one knows exactly where this task ends. The Elder One is the most obvious threat, but there are several other issues that require addressing, too, and every single person in the Inquisition has different ideas about what that means.
** The Inquisitor and Cassandra are the two most frequent characters to discuss this problem, with Cassandra determined to do "the Maker's work" but confessing that she has no idea what that is. The Inquisitor can state that their goal is to "make the world better," and she will sarcastically quip, "Because everyone agrees on what that means."
** Mother Giselle states that she hopes the new Inquisition, like the old one, will know when to put its swords away after their job is done. You find out, however, that [[spoiler:the old Inquisition didn't really do this so much as they became the Seekers of Truth, and were pretty much corrupted by a DarkSecret from the start. Then, as Cassandra states, [[TautologicalTemplar power became its own master.]]]] Likewise, the Inquisitor can state numerous times that they have no plans on dismantling their power once it's acquired, and several Epilogues can comment [[spoiler: on how the Inquisition is now a world superpower in itself.]] The ''Trespasser'' DLC is built around this question, and lets the Inquisitor decide the organization's ultimate fate: officially disband to operate on a much smaller yet uncompromised scale, or keep their resources intact at the cost of Chantry oversight with the potential corruption and infiltration by the enemy that will bring?
* ConspicuousConsumption:
** As you listen to the sales pitch of the Orlesian[[note]]who fittingly is wearing the "[[ImpossiblyTackyClothes pants on head]]" Orlesian mask[[/note]] who is giving the sales pitch for "his ware" (note, not "his wares") that will eventually lead to the acquisition of [[spoiler:nuggalope mounts]], the thought going through your head is probably "Only the most foppish and snobbish [[FrenchJerk Orlesian]] could cook up a scheme like this."
** It abounds throughout Orlesian aristocracy. One particular note Leliana makes is of a noblewoman's shoes at the Winter Palace ball. They're slippers, not meant to be overly fancy, as they'll get dirty and can easily be lost... but this particular pair is decked to the nines in jewels, as if to demonstrate that she can afford to lose them. Leliana's spy network determines that this noblewoman actually ''[[ImpoverishedPatrician can't]]'', and it's an attempt to put up a facade.
* TheConspiracy: The Inquisition is resurrected to get to the bottom of the claims that a shadowy conspiracy is behind the political strife preceding ''Inquisition'''s demonic invasion.
* ContinueYourMissionDammit: During the mission to rescue Inquisition soldiers from the Avvars in the Fallow Mire, you come across a seemingly endless horde of undead. If you spend too long fighting them, your companions will urge you to press forward to the Avvars. (You can, ''eventually'', kill them all, but it's best left for after you've completed the current quest.)
* ConvectionSchmonvection: Any fire that hasn't been conjured by a hostile mage during active combat is merely an atmospheric graphics effect that doesn't inflict damage... except when it does. A handful of burning spots in the game world ''do'' hurt for no apparent reason, but they're extremely rare and not particularly dangerous, serving more as ParanoiaFuel than an actual hazard. The one exception from that rule are the purple fire barriers in the ''Trespasser'' DLC -- touch them and your character drops dead almost instantly regardless of their fire resistance unless some form of invulnerability is active.
* CoolButInefficient: Unique equipment crafted from schematics looks spiffy and is usually a bit more powerful than non-uniques, but lacks upgrade slots aside from runes or sigils. This tends to make the rather generic Enchanter/Prowler/Battlemaster armor versions ultimately better once they've been upgraded with decent arm and leg parts, due to the significant attribute bonuses those parts confer. The same is true for unique weapons versus everything without a special name. It's a bit less cut and dried when these same uniques were dropped by enemies -- these versions also lack upgrade slots, but their innate masterwork bonuses are often much more powerful than their craftable counterparts. Of how much actual use they are depends solely on play style, however.
* CoolChair: One of the perks of Skyhold is a customizable throne from where you judge the fates of defeated enemies; you can acquire new varieties of thrones and upgrades for them by purchasing them or completing certain tasks/missions. One of the bonuses you get for the Deluxe Edition of the game is a throne made out of a ''dragon's skull''.
* CoolHelmet: A staple of ''Dragon Age'''s HighFantasy settings. The Inquisitor's heavy armor helmet is styled to look like a dragon wrapping around their head.
* CoolSword:
** A wide variety of ornate or otherwise nifty looking one- and two-handed swords are available for your party to find, as well as the schematics to design your own.
** The Red Templars wield glowing red swords that bear a disturbing resemblance to Meredith's red lyrium sword from the previous game. Their leader [[spoiler:Samson]] wields a sword that is all but stated to ''be'' Meredith's sword reborn. The Red Templar Archers also get [[CoolGuns similar looking bows]], which bear a slight resemblance to Irvine's demonic one from ''Manga/{{Berserk}}''.
** You can coat your swords with oils or magics to give them [[FlamingSword special effects]].
* CoolVsAwesome: [[OurGiantsAreBigger Giant]] vs [[InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons the Vins]][[ShockAndAwe omer]] on the Storm Coast. Certain party members [[TheKnightsWhoSaySquee even SQUEE]]!
-->'''The Iron Bull:''' Okay, that's ''BADASS!''\\
'''Sera''': (annoying laugh) Wow. We can watch, yeah?
* CoopMultiplayer: The multiplayer mode is similar to the one found in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'': rank-and-file agents of the Inquisition are sent in groups of four to RandomlyGeneratedLevels to fight off waves of enemies, gaining levels and equipment. Unlike in ''[=ME3=]'', however, the multiplayer has no impact on the single-player experience.
* CoversAlwaysLie:
** A very minor example. The Anchor that empowers the Inquisitor is on their ''left'' hand, not their right.
** In addition, the Inquisitor is portrayed as a longsword-wielding warrior, even though the Inquisitor might be a rogue or a mage, and even as a warrior they might use a variety of other weapons. This "archetypal" Inquisitor also appears in various promotional images in addition to the cover. If seen from the front, there will sometimes be [[http://imagizer-cv.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/746/Y2tMVX.jpg both a male and a female Inquisitor]], but they will still be warriors.
** Some of the promotional art seems to depict the Inquisitor wearing a ''red'' ring; however, in the game, the main color that seems to resonate with the Inquisitor is ''green'', namely the mark on his/her hand. In fact, red seems to be the ''bad'' color, since much of the game revolves around people being corrupted by ''Red'' Lyrium.
* CrapsackWorld: A cataclysmic event has plunged the entire continent into turmoil, dragons are darkening the skies, and the Mage-Templar War is now just one of many wars that have claimed countless lives. On the other hand, [[WorldHalfFull Thedas is in better shape than it had been for years,]] with the Blight gone and Kirkwall having averted an Exalted March called upon it; many places that could previously have been called TheDungAges are now on the mend, and the Inquisition is able to improve places such as the Hinterlands and Crestwood throughout the game.
* CrashIntoHello: A weaponized version of this can be intentionally invoked with the Rogue and Warrior ChainPain moves.
* CreatorCameo:
** The miniboss Jepler the Unbound, from one of Cassandra's personal quests, is named after one of the game's cinematic designers, John Epler.
** The very unfortunate Comte Boisvert [[spoiler: who ends up locked in his own (valuable) cabinet]] shares his name with another cinematic designer, Richard Boisvert.
* {{Cult}}:
** The Venatori are a Tevinter cult that reveres the Elder One, whom they believe will restore the glory of old Tevinter.
** See ApocalypseCult above for other examples.
* CutscenePowerToTheMax
** Cole's spirit powers.
** After returning from [[spoiler:the Fade]] at Adamant Fortress, the Inquisitor defeats a demon and closes a rift with two simple hand gestures (and a very pissed-off facial expression).
** Corypheus [[spoiler:levitates the entirety of Haven and its ruins (along with the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes) in the cutscene leading to his final battle. He does nothing nearly that powerful or similar during his boss battle.]]
* CuttingOffTheBranches:
** ''Dragon Age: Inquisition'' has replaced importing old saves, which was available in both ''Awakening'' and ''Dragon Age II'', with the ''Dragon Age Keep''. This is a website where players are able to determine decisions made in the previous games as they see fit. Approximately 300 different choices can be made in the Keep. This adds replay value as it allows you to start a new playthrough with a completely different world state. There is also a default world state, for players who did not play the previous games or do not wish to bother with the Keep. The default world state assumes that a female Dalish Elf warrior Warden died killing the Archdemon in ''Origins'' and a male mage Hawke sided with the mages in ''Dragon Age II''.
** Leliana is alive even if you killed her in ''Origins''. If you did, she credits her survival to a miracle and is convinced she was resurrected. [[spoiler: If a resurrected Leliana is not made Divine, the epilogue of ''Trespasser'' shows her vanishing in a cloud of ravens, leaving behind only a note explaining that dying in the Temple of Sacred Ashes allowed the lyrium to take on her form and memories.]]
** Leliana may have been given Schmooples by the Warden. This particular choice is not covered by the '' Keep'' at all, so the game assumes it always happened; a letter found in the Skyhold rookery reveals that [[spoiler:Schmooples has a number of descendants, for whom Leliana has hired a caretaker.]]
** Morrigan is alive and well even if you killed her in the ''Witch Hunt'' DLC. To be fair, she is not actually seen dying onscreen; you stab her and she falls through the Eluvian.
** Dagna will have joined the Circles and became an Arcanist no matter how you actually dealt with her quest in ''Origins''. She is always the Arcanist you receive, but the backstory she tells you about how she got there changes depending on whether the Warden helped her or not. Her personality also depends on this.
** In the ''Trespasser'' epilogue, [[spoiler: it seems that you'll always end up with a Circle and a College in uneasy coexistence, no matter who ended up being the Divine. Which is dominant may depend on game choices (which side was rescued pre-Havencide, who Divine Victoria is), but both still exist.]]
* DamnYouMuscleMemory: PC players familiar with the previous games were hit hard with this, since the keyboard commands - which had been fairly consistent from ''Origins'' to ''II'' - got largely reworked for ''Inquisition''. This is especially true of the space bar, which acted as the pause button for the first two games but became the jump button this one. (Considering that many players instinctively hit pause when things are going south in combat, a lot of PC fans were not pleased.)
* DangerousDeserter:
** The Freemen of the Dales are a revolutionary group composed largely of deserters from the Orlesian Civil War, who want an independent Dales free of the Orlesian nobility. Unfortunately, they are little more than a large group of bandits who prey on the common folk for whom they claim to be fighting, they supply the Red Templars, and one of their leaders is actually a Venatori mage.
** The renegade Templars and Mages tearing up the Hinterlands also count as this. While most Templars or mages followed orders to head to Therinfal or to Redcliffe (depending on faction), the rest are so deranged with hatred that they continue the fight, and the Hinterlands suffers for it.
* DarkestHour: At the end of the first act, when [[spoiler: Haven is destroyed by the Elder One]].
* DearJohnLetter:
** In Skyhold, you can find an example, where a woman writes her boyfriend (who is apparently a Skyhold soldier) saying that she has fallen in love with a woman and how awesome she is because she brings her hope, and she's not going to run off and fight in a war.
** In another quest, there's an instance where a dying woman asks you to deliver a letter into a hollowed rock in the Emprise du Lion. Her dialogue implies that it's this type of letter, written to make her lover believe that she's run off with someone else, [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy so that he can forget her and move on.]]
* DeathBySex: During party banter, Iron Bull can ask Solas if he ever uses his time in the Fade to indulge baser pleasures, such as sex with "Fade women." Solas calmly explains that this sort of behavior tends to attract demons. A dismayed Bull bemoans that demons screw up ''everything''.
* DeathEqualsRedemption: [[spoiler: During the siege of Haven, a fatally injured Chancellor Roderick tells the Inquisition of a secret pass through the mountains, which he accidentally discovered on a pilgrimage to the Conclave a long time ago. He takes his knowledge of the existence of the pass as a sign from the Maker that he was meant to aid the Inquisition, and says that he was wrong to doubt them all this time.]]
* DeathGlare: At the formal start of a romance between the Lady Inquisitor and Cullen, [[spoiler:the first kiss is interrupted by a soldier delivering an urgent report... who promptly gets a glare from Cullen that could cow an Archdemon.]]
* DecadentCourt: One of the main missions involves taking part in this: picture [[AcceptableTargets Parliament Question Time]] only with more bloodshed. The idea is to track down who wants to assassinate the Empress and stop them... or allow it to happen if you side with MurderIsTheBestSolution and vie for who you want in charge. To do so you must maintain a high enough standing with the participants, proper speech, posture, know what to agree and disagree with, as well as dig up political dirt that can later be used.
* DefeatMeansFriendship: When judging the fates of defeated enemies, you can turn many of them into agents of the Inquisition. It's less mercy and more [[CantKillYouStillNeedYou pragmatism]] with the fact that simply killing/imprisoning them is simply wasteful.
* DefectorFromDecadence[=/=]CulturalCringe: Dorian leaves the Tevinter Imperium due to disillusionment with his country's moral decay (the Imperium is known and criticized for practicing slavery and valuing greed for power).
* DegradedBoss:
** The first boss of the game is a Pride Demon. Late in the game, Pride Demons start spawning from Fade Rifts and are not quite as difficult. Pride Demons are also very degraded from their original appearance in ''Dragon Age: Origins'', where a contracted Pride demon was being used to test ''your'' pride in the Mage origin: it pretended to be a weak spirit of a man, saying how awesome you were and begging you to let him tag along into the physical world. Here they're just monsters who attack. Solas offers the explanation that being dragged through Rifts is a very traumatic experience for a spirit, leaving them as bestial shells of the beings they were.
** If you side with the mages, the first Red Templar Behemoth you face is presented as a unique, named boss fight. Later on you end up facing dozens as ordinary {{Elite Mook}}s.
* DeployableCover:
** New spells can create walls of ice and fire that your party can hide behind.
** The Warrior Champion ability "Line In The Sand" functions as this, preventing enemies from moving past the Warrior, so ranged members can fire from behind safely.
** Red Templar Behemoths can grow walls of red lyrium to the same effect.
* DespairEventHorizon: After [[spoiler:the loss of Haven, the entire Inquisition teeters perilously close to it until Mother Giselle props the Herald up as a HopeBringer by singing the Chantry hymn "[[SongOfCourage The Dawn Will Come]]" in the Herald's presence.]]
* DesperateObjectCatch: How the Herald got stuck with the Anchor. [[spoiler:They [[SpannerInTheWorks interrupted]] Corypheus's plan to use Divine Justinia as a blood sacrifice for the Orb of Destruction. Justinia seized the moment and knocked the Orb out of Corypheus's hand. As if by reflex, the {{player character}} rushed to grab it... and it then branded the Anchor into their left hand.]]
* DestinationDefenestration: During the Winter Palace mission, the Inquisitor kicks a Harlequin assassin out of the window.
* DestructoNookie: No BelligerentSexualTension, but there was some deliberate destruction of desk toppings in a later romance scene between Cullen and Fem-Inquisitor. The desk survives, as may be indicated in a dialogue with Sera during some pranking adventures.
* DevelopersForesight:
** If you pick Orlesian decor for Skyhold, Vivienne will compliment your fashion sense.
** Early on, your character picks up a weapon to defend themselves and Cassandra wants them to disarm. If you happen to play a mage, you get the option to tell her that you don't really need a weapon to be dangerous anyway. There are lots of little moments like that where your class or race is taken into consideration.
** During a cutscene near the end of the game, if you [[spoiler:fight and kill Corypheus' Dragon, the kill animation will take into account your specialization if you have one. One example is that you'll stab the Dragon with your spirit blade if a Knight-Enchanter.]]
** If you're playing a Qunari and have horns of certain styles being in areas with low hanging light fixtures will result in you bumping into them with a "bonk" sound effect.
** The game keeps track of the Inquisitor's stated religious beliefs and whether or not they think they were chosen by Andraste. Other characters will respond accordingly.
** If you run into a wild animal while on a mount, there's a good chance you'll knock it over (complete with a very disgruntled noise on the animal's part).
** High Dragon [[WindFromBeneathMyWings wing attacks]] not only deflect ranged attacks, but also anything that is tossed into the air, so you try to throw landmines, caltrops, or daggers while the dragon is flapping, expect to see them fly harmlessly away.
** Stealthy enemies (like Venatori Stalkers) fighting you while on ground that leaves footprints (like the Western Approach sand dunes) [[SeeTheInvisible will still leave footprints when cloaked]]. Toss a grenade flask or have a mage launch an area attack where they're walking.
** If you don't talk to Sera at Haven but then decide to talk to her when you first get Skyhold, [[WhatTheHellHero she'll slightly disapprove and call you out on it.]]
** At Adamant, it is possible for Blackwall to stand up to a crowd of Grey Wardens serving the Venatori and, by appealing to the mutual experiences of the order - as an organization which is founded on principles of justice, sacrifice and duty to one's brothers - convince them to join him (and therefore you). If you made him do that, you will get a special question to ask him later on once it's revealed that [[spoiler: he was never even a Grey Warden in the first place. He admits that he just made it all up, but concludes that since he truly spoke from his heart about ideals which he truly believes in - even if he himself couldn't match them - it may not matter.]]
** If Morrigan has [[spoiler: Old God]] Kieran, but the Inquisitor doesn't speak to her between "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts" and "What Pride Had Wrought", then one of the dialogue options when [[spoiler: Kieran opens the Eluvian]] is "Morrigan has a son?"
** At the end of ''Trespasser'', [[spoiler:if the player has low Approval with Solas and never bothered to exhaust his investigate dialogue options, they get the option to tell Solas that they don't have the patience to put up with his long-winded lectures, to which he'll simply give you a summarized version of his backstory.]]
** In ''Trespasser'', when you enter [[spoiler: the Crossroads, Sera will remark that she can see colors, but the rest of the party can see only grey. If the Inquisitor is an elf, they can see more colors and flowers on the trees, but if the Inquisitor is of any other race, the environment is duller and the trees are bare.]]
** In the final sequence of ''Trespasser'', for story related reasons, the Inquisitor starts gaining Focus at a rapid rate. While this does allow the Inquisitor's Focus Power to be used ''much'' more frequently, it is not possible to spam it. For the only time in the game, Focus Abilities are given a cooldown, one that is unaffected by all passive abilities that can shorten it, though a mage's Flashpoint passive still works.
** Occasionally at the war table your advisors will chat with each other. They appear upon completing a mission, and if a dialogue begins or is ongoing when they do they will actually stop what they are up to for the sake of the discussion. They'll also comment on the events of the game, and your actions: kill several dragons and it'll be brought up.
** All party companions have unique voice lines for riding horses, despite the fact that one would rarely switch to one of them when mounted.
* DevilButNoGod: One of the recurring themes of the game is whether or not there's a Maker. The religion itself doesn't help, since its central claim is that the Maker has already abandoned the sinful mortal world. There's no divine magic (at least, Chantry adherents have no unusual powers to speak of, unlike D&D clerics) and there's plenty of non-humans around who aren't Andrastian, yet still we see indications that there's definitely more out there than what we know of. Struggling with what you believe, and what others believe of you now that they've put you on a pedestal, is something that keeps coming up. The main villain is the closest thing we've ever seen to a Thedas equivalent of Satan, too, but even he [[spoiler: used to be a mortal man who claims to have invaded the Golden City only to find it empty.]]
* DialogueDuringGameplay: Party banter returns and is occasionally interactive this time around. You can also talk to some {{NPC}}s without stopping your movement in a similar fashion.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: In the ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC, [[spoiler:the Inquisitor kills Hakkon Wintersbreath, Avvar God of War and Winter.]]
* DiscOneNuke: Thanks to several bugs, it's possible to kill a dragon on level 3, multiply the dropped crafting materials to infinity, stealth rush a side quest available on the Hinterlands that has a Tier 3 chest at the end and multiply the chest's drops until you have every Tier 3 blueprint it could drop. As crafted items don't have level restrictions, you are now a level 7 (thanks to the dragon's XP) Inquisitor with a full Tier 3 set made from Tier 4 dragon materials.[[note]]Some of these bugs have been fixed, as of Patch 3.[[/note]]
** A more legitimate version of this trope was the addition of the Golden Nug statue in the Game of the Year edition/upgrade. It allows you to synchronize your games so that any schematic, seed, or potion you've unlocked in one game is unlocked in all your others. This allows you to begin with powerful Tier 3 and Tier 4 schematics right at the beginning of the game, making early areas much easier to deal with even if you're only using weak Tier 1 components.
* DiscOneFinalBoss: [[spoiler:The Breach itself]] is dealt with at the end of the first act. The rest of the game is spent dealing with the Elder One. [[spoiler:But then he creates an ''even bigger'' Breach at the end to lure the Inquisitor into a final showdown.]]
* DistantFinale: ''Trespasser'', the final story DLC and ''Inquisition'''s epilogue, takes place two years after the rest of the game, to show how the Inquisitor's actions changed Thedas and what life has been like for the companions and advisors.
* DoesNotLikeShoes: Most elves continue to have an aversion to conventional footwear. With any elven armor equipped, the Inquisitor can join their feud against boots.
* {{Doorstopper}}: Most books in Thedas takes this shape, most prominently the writ that authorizes Leliana and Cassandra to reform the Inquisition at the beginning of the game. It even makes a heavy and quite satisfying "thud" sound every time it's emphatically dropped or smashed onto some surface, be it table or floor. Other noteworthy examples include the huge tomes hostile Spellbinder mages carry around with them, as well as the one the Viddasala has strapped to her pauldron during the ''Trespasser'' quest line.
* DownloadableContent: Several packs have been released post game:
** ''Deluxe Edition Upgrade:'' Allows players who didn't purchase the Deluxe edition to access the items from the pack. Includes armour and weapons tailored to your class that can be upgraded as the game goes on, multiplayer chests, a digital soundtrack, several horses, and a special throne.
** ''Destruction Multiplayer Expansion:'' Adds to the multiplayer with new paths in the maps and the chance for wildlife to roam the battlefield.
** ''Dragonslayer Pack:'' Includes new multiplayer characters and a new map which allows players to fight High Dragons.
** ''The Black Emporium:'' Returns from ''Dragon Age II'' with the same purpose of selling crafting materials and high quality gear.
** ''Jaws of Hakkon:'' The first story DLC, which has the Inquisitor try and find out what happened to the First Inquisitor.
** ''Spoils of the Avvar:'' A content pack similar to the Deluxe Edition Upgrade, ading new weapons, armour, mounts and Skyhold decorations all styled on the Avvar tribe met in ''Hakkon''.
** ''Spoils of the Qunari:'' Another content pack, this time styled on the Qunari. Includes schematics, mounts, Skyhold decorations and armour.
** ''The Descent:'' The second story DLC, this time having the Inquisitor visit the Deep Roads to find the source of earthquakes threatening Thedas.
** ''Trespasser:'' The third and final DLC pack, set two years after the game ends.
* DramaticIrony:
** The Grey Wardens, an order founded to destroy the darkspawn, [[spoiler:become the pawns of one of the oldest and strongest darkspawn of all - precisely ''because'' of the measures they took to become able to end Blights.]]
** Blackwall [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the irony [[spoiler:that he joined the Inquisition because they thought he was a Warden and would therefore be useful, and turned out to be useful to them only because he's ''not'' really a Warden - he wasn't affected by Corypheus's scheme.]]
** If the Inquisitor romances [[spoiler: Solas, in ''Trespasser'' he will reference the old Dalish curse "May the Dread Wolf take you," to which the romanced Inquisitor - a Dalish elf - can reply bitterly, "And so he did." The Dalish vilify Fen'Harel, and he became the Inquisitor's close confidant. It's doubly ironic if the Inquisitor is a mage; as their clan's First they were being trained to guard against the Dread Wolf. Solas hastens to qualify that he helped (and loved, however one defines it) the Inquisitor honestly, not through trickery.]]
* DrillSergeantNasty:
** A drill instructor is working over some raw recruits at Griffon Wing Keep once you take over the fortress.
** Though actually a commander instead of a sergeant, the Knight-Enchanter specialization trainer Helaine fits the bill as well, at least verbally.
* DrivingQuestion:
** In the first act, what is the identity of the HiddenVillain and who is responsible for the tears in the Veil?
** At the end of the act, the HiddenVillain [[spoiler:makes his presence known when he leads his army to crush Haven]]; for the rest of the game, the question focuses more on how they tore the Veil and opened the [[HellGate Breach]]. For Varric and Hawke, the question is [[spoiler: how is Corypheus still alive when they ''very definitely'' killed him?]]
* DroneOfDread:
** The Exalted Plains' background music comprises of this eerily soft, hollow-sounding, subtly and slowly changing chord.
** Also couple with the ''enormously loud'' blaring sound when you blow one of the war horns there, usually after recapturing a fortress from the Freemen. If you have sufficiently high volume and aren't expecting it, it can be a JumpScare.
** When you are braving the uncontrolled ancient elven superweapon at the Plains' Citadelle du Corbeau, the weapon makes a loud droning noise when it's firing (on top of everything subject to its beam bursting into flame), and even when its aim is just meandering aimlessly it has an ominous growling hum.
** When first entering Valammar in the Hinterlands, a deep loud rumble echoes upward from the chasm beneath. (Doubles as foreshadowing for ''The Descent'' DLC.)
* DuringTheWar:
** The game takes place during the Mage-Templar War that began in the final chapters of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII''.
** As of ''Literature/{{Asunder}}'' and ''Literature/TheMaskedEmpire'', there's also an Orlesian civil war and an elven uprising to boot.
* DysfunctionJunction: This being a Creator/BioWare game, your PlayerParty naturally has more issues than the DSM-5 [[note]]''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'', Fifth Edition[[/note]].
* EarnYourHappyEnding:
** For the Orlesian Civil War arc, your choices are to assist the manipulative and self-serving Empress Celene, the [[MightMakesRight war-mongering, militaristic]] Duke Gaspard, or the underhanded and ambitious [[KingOfTheHomeless Ambassador of the Elven servants]]. One of them must defeat the other two to create a stable future for Orlais. Obtaining the best possible outcome (and there is heated debate as to which outcome is, in fact, the best) requires you to do a lot of exploring, gain favor with the Imperial Court, pay close attention to the clues laid about during the investigation, pick specific dialogue options, locate a large number of hidden "keys" to search the palace, and then take the correct steps on the war map. [[GuideDangIt Good luck getting the exact outcome you want on your first game.]]
** For the Chantry, you need to be very, ''very'' careful with what options you pick throughout the game. Only revealed months after the game's release is that certain decisions are being "watched" by the Clerics and are influencing their decisions to elect a new Divine. These include major story choices as well as seemingly innocuous conversations (especially Cassandra, Leliana or Vivienne's opinions). While the elected Divine Victoria proves mostly competent at her job, her decisions may still agitate unrest or rebellion. This especially depends on [[spoiler:Leliana's personality - her rule as Divine poses the greatest risks, but also potentially brings the greatest reward. Cassandra and Vivienne's Approval levels must also be maintained.]]
** For the Mages, [[spoiler:Leliana being elected Divine is the only unambiguously happy ending - especially if she is "softened"]]. Every other choice leads to a split between Mages or unrest that needs to be put down.
** Averted with the Templars. No matter what decisions the Inquisitor has made (including [[spoiler:whether to Ally or Disband them]]) they get a relatively positive outcome.
* EarlyBirdCameo: The codex entry for the "Helm of the Inquisitor" features the story of the last leader of the Inquisition, Ameridan, and how he vanished during a dragon hunt. Ameridan's story is the impetus behind the first DLC, ''Jaws of Hakkon''.
** In Haven, one of the characters heard in ambient conversation is a senior elven spy named Charter. After [[spoiler:the attack on Haven]] and the restoration of the stronghold in Crestwood, Charter becomes the commander of the stronghold, giving the Inquisitor a few sidequests and managing Leliana's spy network in that general part of Thedas.
* EasterEgg:
** A man named Lord Trifles Minutiae will appear in random places throughout Skyhold (including inside a gold vault that only appears if you have a certain perk, on the top floor of the tavern, at the top of the reconstructed tower, and even in the Inquisitor's bedroom) and ask a series of ''Dragon Age'' trivia questions. Answer three correctly inside a time limit, and he will give you [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment the Boon of the Spoon - a ladle large enough to be used as a two-handed mace - before disappearing]].
** Another EasterEgg weapon can be crafted using Sad Splinters (found by destroying Keep doors) and a recipe found in what looks like a pile of dung.
** Yet another gag weapon is [[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/The_Jade_Ham The Jade Ham]], a one-handed mace with a large ham for a head ([[IThoughtItMeant no, not that kind]] of LargeHam) that's available through a ''Jaws of Hakkon'' war table operation. Its item description is full of ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'' {{Shout Out}}s - [[CaptainObvious hence the name]].
** The above-mentioned gold vault contains a top hat which looks remarkably like the one worn by [[WesternAnimation/DuckTales Scrooge McDuck]].
** An Easter Egg "helmet" named the Ardent Blossom (actually a wreath of white flowers threaded with lyrium) can be acquired through the well-hidden sidequest [[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/The_Tiniest_Cave The Tiniest Cave]]. It's the only headwear of this style in the game and confers a quite useful attribute bonus, though depending on your other equipment it can make your character look a bit silly.
* EasyLogistics: The War Table runs on this. With Cullen (who sends troops directly to problem areas) and Josephine (who presumably deals with diplomats sent to Skyhold), this is less apparent. In Leliana's case, however, this trope is played completely straight. From a base on the border between Ferelden and Orlais, she is able to coordinate a spy ring across the entire continent, with nothing more than messenger ravens and couriers, with no concern that the information she receives may be weeks, if not months out of date.
* {{Elfeminate}}: Elves by default are pretty androgynous when it comes to body shape; however, thanks to the extreme detail of the character creator ''and'' the ability to give a male character makeup, it is entirely possible to make an ''extremely'' feminine-looking male elf Inquisitor.
** Averted for Solas, who is muscular and masculine in appearance. [[spoiler: This is also true of Abelas and other ancient elves, suggesting that the elven physique has changed over a thousand years.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:The Titans from the]] ''[[spoiler:Descent]]'' [[spoiler:DLC are incomprehensibly large beings that dwell deep beneath the surface of Thedas, and are actually the source of all lyrium, since it is in fact their blood. They share a unique psychic bond with all dwarves, indicating some form of latent HiveMind. They're also clearly sentient, and are privy to unknown secrets about what lies beneath Thedas, and have unexplained powers that allow their thralls to seemingly teleport at will throughout the world]]. In short, everything about them essentially slaps ''some'' well-accepted fact in Thedas in the face.
* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: The Inquisition was created by a number of upper class individuals, including a noblewoman from Antiva as well as the Right and Left Hands of the Divine herself. However, Josephine strictly states that this small head start would not last long due to the Chantry's denouncement. Fortunately, the game proper allows the Inquisition to grow in power, influence and prestige until the Inquisitor is considered the equal of monarchs. This trope is also played straight with many of the companions, agents and allies, who are usually people with political pedigree, renowned skills and abilities, or unique assets. Even companions who ''seem'' to avert this, like Sera, turn out to have been raised by nobility or have otherwise exceptional facets.
* EmpathicEnvironment:
** The village of Crestwood is under attack by legions of demon-possessed corpses rising from the lake, and so it's appropriately dark and raining all the time. But once the rift is closed and the undead stop coming - surprise! - the weather instantly turns almost painfully sunny (though it's still raining in some places, it makes the landscape brilliant rather than dreary). The only downside to draining the lake to reach the rift is it ticks off the high dragon nesting nearby and causes her to become aggressive, which makes her a bigger threat than the undead.
** Similarly, at the execution of [[spoiler:Mornay]] in Val Royeaux, [[spoiler:the normally sunny weather is replaced by a dreary drizzle, which continues while the Inquisitor goes to the prison to speak with Thom Rainier.]]
** The only time it snows really hard in the Frostback Mountains is when you are cut off from the rest of the Inquisition and are trying to find them again.
** Skyhold itself seems to operate on this. Despite being nestled in the Frostbacks, the grounds within the castle walls are perpetually sunny and autumnal, with green grass and leaves on the trees, and no one ever indicates that they feel cold. Of course, it's stated many times that magic has essentially seeped into the stones, which could very well make it a case of ''literally'' empathic environment.
* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: The world must unite to stop a demonic invasion from the Fade, or die.
** And that's just the main game. With ''Trespasser'' installed, another example is already rearing its head barely two years after the first one, [[spoiler:and the DLC ends with what's left of the Inquisition preparing their attempt to prevent it, [[{{Cliffhanger}} setting the stage for the sequel]]]].
* EnemyCivilWar: The schism between the [[InternalAffairs Seekers]], the [[ChurchMilitant Templars]] and the [[TheChurch Chantry]], following the dissolution of the [[BindingAncientTreaty Nevarran Accord]] in ''Asunder''. The "enemy" part varies based on your character's position.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Dorian's mentor, Alexius, seems like a rather nasty magister, but he loves his son and only turned to the Venatori when Corypheus promised a cure for his son's taint sickness. Before his son's illness made him desperate, he was (in Dorian's own words) an extremely good man.
* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: The Phoenixes that show up in certain areas of the Western Approach are Utahraptors, complete with the anatomically correct feathers that dinosaurs had but usually aren't depicted as having. [[DinosaursAreDragons They do breathe fire]], though.
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Lampshaded beautifully by [[DeadpanSnarker Varric]] while admiring the scenery in the Emerald Graves:
-->'''Varric''': Ah, the wilds of Thedas. Lush, beautiful, and full of things that want to eat you.
* EvilChancellor: The King of Nevarra's most trusted advisor just happens to be a Venatori spy. You can send one of your advisors to put a stop to his schemes.
* EvilLaugh: Pride demons sport an impressive one.
* EvilWeapon: The sword Certainty dropped by [[spoiler:Samson]] is heavily implied to be [[Videogame/DragonAgeII Meredith's]] red lyrium sword reborn. The weapon description cautions the Inquisitor to be careful with Certainty.
* ExactWords:
** There's a reason equipment is marked "Human/Elf/Whatever ''Trained'' Only" rather than just "Human Only." Sera is unable to wear or use any equipment that is "Elf-trained only", since while she ''is'' an elf, she was raised by a human woman and counts as Human-trained. Likewise, Cole is a spirit who takes the form and memories of a deceased human mage, so he too is "Human-trained." Then we later find out that [[spoiler: Solas is an Elven god masquerading as a mortal, so he's Elf-trained]]. One can assume that a practitioner of the Qunari religion who isn't a member of the race (like [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII Tallis]]) would count as Qunari-trained.
** In "Here Lies the Abyss", [[spoiler:Blackwall's speech to the Grey Wardens relies heavily on this. He tells the Wardens that none of them know him, but they have heard of him. He never said that he was actually Warden Blackwall: the Wardens have most likely heard of Thom Rainier's crimes. He tells the Wardens that putting on Warden armor is reassuring, but he never actually says that he is a Warden.]]
** Blackwall also says [[spoiler: he's not worried about the Calling. Since he doesn't actually have the darkspawn taint in him like all real Wardens do, he'll never ''have'' to worry about it, either (unless he joins the Wardens for real between the end of the main game and ''Trespasser''.]]
* {{Expy}}: The Friends of Red Jenny, as explained by Sera, seem to be Thedas's answer to Tropers/{{Anonymous}}.
** Somehow, even though beginning at a completely different place, the ''Trespasser'' DLC has a 50/50 shot of the Inquisitor ending up in a strikingly similar situation to the beginning of ''[[spoiler: VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain.]]''
* FaceNodAction: During "In Hushed Whispers," as you and Dorian try to return [[spoiler:to the present]], your other two companions will face each other and nod, [[spoiler:silently agreeing [[HeroicSacrifice to hold the armies of the Elder One back as long as possible]].]]
* {{Facepalm}}: Statues of Maferath the Betrayer all over the game seem to depict him doing this. In Val Royeaux's Avenue of Her Reflective Thought, a vandal has scrawled several humorous cutting remarks about the propensity of Maferath to be portrayed doing this on several statues' plaques.
-->'''MAFERATH'S REMORSE'''\\
(Beneath, scratched by a vandal) ''At meeting a low door frame''.
* FailedAttemptAtDrama: While the Herald is stuck in the Envy Demon's mind-trap during "Champions of the Just," it will occasionally try to deliver a BreakingSpeech. Cole will often interrupt by encouraging you, or telling you that the demon is weak. The Envy Demon can't do anything to him, so it's reduced to shouting at him, ruining any effect the speeches might have had.
* FailedASpotCheck:
** While Cassandra is talking to the Herald about the need for an Inquisitor to lead them, they're going up the steps of Skyhold's battlements... [[spoiler: where the Herald is greeted by Leliana holding an ornate sword, prompting the Herald to look right and see the organized crowd below]].
** While you're meeting with Alexius and discussing his interest in your magical mark, [[spoiler: the various Venatori warriors that are quite visibly lurking in the background getting ready to ambush you are murdered by your own Inquisition agents, and Alexius doesn't notice until he tries ordering the ambush to be sprung. In fairness to him, he turns his back on the room just before they creep in, and he has his attention on Felix when he turns again; it's only when he makes the order that the agents kill the Venatori.]]
* FallenHero: [[spoiler:Solas. He saved the world one thousand years ago from false gods by creating the Veil. Now he seeks to undo his "mistake" through genocide. To be fair, Solas woke up to a Thedas stuck in the dark ages for one thousand years, and rejoining reality with the Fade would ascend the current elves while killing all the other races. The Inquisitor disagrees, since they see these "Tranquil non-elves" as more than pitiful, lost souls - especially if they ''are'' a non-elf themselves.]]
* FameGate: By doing sidequests and exploring, you increase the influence of the Inquisition, unlocking main story missions upon reaching certain fame levels.
* FantasticSlurs: The Chargers apparently call Tevinters "Vints." Some humans continue to call elves "knife-ear" and Qunari "oxen," a few elves call humans "shems" (the derogatory variant of "shemlen), some Dalish elves refer to city elves as "flat-ear" (with some city elves viewing any elves who leave the alienage as "flat-ears"), and "rabbit" debuts as a derogatory pet name used for elves by humans in Orlais.
* TheFellowshipHasEnded:
** The party is visibly heading this way immediately after the FinalBattle. Several companions make plans to leave at some point, usually to patch things up back home, though if you have high enough approval, many others plan on staying and even being an active part of the Inquisition.
** At the end of ''Trespasser'', [[spoiler:the Inquisitor can choose to permanently disband the Inquisition for various reasons. Even if the Inquisition is not disbanded, the organization is downsized from NGOSuperpower to an arm of the Chantry. Regardless of your choice, most of the party members go their separate ways, though it's implied that at least most of them will keep in touch with the Inquisitor.]]
* FelonyMisdemeanor: [[spoiler: Maddox, the Tranquil that made Samson's armor, was the victim of such a punishment; he was a Kirkwall mage charged with "corrupting the moral integrity of a Templar" by [[KnightTemplar Knight-Commander Meredith]]: meaning, he was passing love letters back and forth with a female Templar. Cullen notes with disgust that Meredith wielded the Tranquil brand for far lesser offenses.]]
* FetchQuest: Loads and loads of them.
* FighterMageThief:
** As in previous ''Dragon Age'' games, the three base classes are Warrior, Mage and Rogue. Your first three companions consist of one of each (Cassandra, Solas and Varric).
** The sub-class specializations are kind of a subset of FighterMageThief within each discipline. Rogues can double-down on their stealth and melee combat as Assassins, become a TrapMaster as an Artificer or go nuts with elemental concoctions as a Tempest. For Warriors, the choice between Reavers, Champions and Templars is that of pure damage, heavy defense or battlefield control using anti-magic. Mages become defensive warriors as [[MagicKnight Knight-Enchanters]], control the battlefield with tactics as a Necromancer, or just blow crap up even better as a Rift Mage.
** The choice [[spoiler:of the new Divine comes down to Cassandra (warrior), Leliana (rogue), and Vivienne (mage).]]
* FilkSong: [[http://youtu.be/3MVqdYcbDp8 All As One]], courtesy of [[Music/MiracleOfSound Miracle of Sound]]. A quick search will find [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oA-OvP3vME many]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M3TzAiNqzU many]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x46QHercK4s more]].
* FingerPokeOfDoom: If you take the Knight-Enchanter skill "Fade Cloak" and its augmentative Decloaking Blast, you can deal massive spirit damage... by walking inside someone and [[{{Telefrag}} letting the effect wear out]].
* FlamingSword: Like in the previous games, you can wield one.
* FlashStep:
** The Fade Step spell creates invisible waves of magic that pushes the caster ahead a short distance at a blur, [[IntangibleMan passing through anyone in the way]]. Useful for mages to [[SquishyWizard extricate themselves from a melee situation]]... or for [[MagicKnight Knight-Enchanters]] to get ''into'' a melee situation. "Frost Step", an augmenting talent for it, makes anyone passed through take a [[AnIcePerson frost damage]] hit.
** The Rogue ability Flank Attack is a version of this.
* FlockOfWolves: [[spoiler: One of the reasons given for breaking up or reforming the Inquisition in ''Trespasser''. The DLC's plot is set in motion when one set of infiltrators stumbled over the plot of a ''completely unconnected'' second set of infiltrators, with the Inquisition's laughable internal security having missed both groups.]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** From the beginning of the game, the alchemist's notes observe that the Inquisitor was muttering something about 'the grey' while they were recovering from their first trip in the Fade. [[spoiler:This is because they encountered the mind-controlled Grey Wardens holding Divine Justinia for Corypheus.]]
** Solas' personal quest's name, "All New, Faded for Her", is an anagram for [[spoiler:Fen'Harel Dread Wolf]], hinting at his true nature.
** There is plenty of foreshadowing concerning [[spoiler:Blackwall's true identity]], such as the fact that [[spoiler:he's not affected by the Calling, becomes disproportionately aggressive when asked by Varric about his 'dark secret', and didn't know that there were only three Wardens involved in the Battle of Denerim.]]
** A throwaway comment from Sera, of all people, near the beginning of the game hints at revelations towards the end. [[spoiler:When asked about elves, Sera says, among other things, that "the Dalish don't know. They say they do, but that's just stories." Then, towards endgame, you can potentially talk with Abelas and learn that the Dalish version of elven history and mythology is not accurate on certain issues; however, it turns out the Dalish ''were'' correct about Arlathan, the existence of the Creators and the Forgotten Ones, the war between the gods, magic being wielded by the ancients, Fen'Harel's treachery against the Creators, and the betrayal by Fen'Harel.]] Sera's very upset over the notion that the Creators may have been real, to the point where she will break up with a romanced Dalish Inquisitor unless she gives up her belief in the Creators.
** In one of the earliest conversations you can have with Solas, he talks about how the artifact that created the Breach is unlike anything seen in this age, and that he refuses to believe it could be destroyed until he sees it shattered with his own eyes. [[spoiler: He knows exactly what that artifact is and what it does, and at the end of the game, he does indeed see it shattered.]]
** The visual foreshadowing during the finding Skyhold cutscene. [[spoiler: Watch how Solas's expression hardens from a smile into something more enigmatic, after the Inquisitor walks past him. The shot afterwards carefully frames Solas as overlooking both the Inquisitor and Skyhold. This makes a lot more sense after playing the ''Trespasser'' DLC, when you learn how Solas has been manipulating you.]]
** When reading the description for any of the Cleansing Runes or their crafting schematics, you may notice that it states it augments damage against darkspawn and Red Templars. An odd combination... [[spoiler:until you learn that Red Lyrium is [[TheCorruption Blight]]-tainted Lyrium. The rune causes greater harm to Red Templars because, in a way, they're Blighted ghouls now.]]
** Cassandra muses early on that it's a shame more people can't take the initiation to join the Seekers, since that gives a person immunity to possession and mind control. [[spoiler:She is not the first person to think that. The reason it was discovered that tranquility strips mages of their magic is because [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom a mage had the exact same idea and tried to test it]].]]
** Some idle gossip around Haven about the structure of Haven can hint to what happens there. You can overhear one guard asking another why they need such huge trebuchets for bandits, to which the superior snaps they're there in case they get attacked by more than just bandits. [[spoiler: Cue the Elder One and his army of mages/Red Templars, and the trebuchets needed to slow/stop them by making avalanches and rockslides.]] Others gossipers mention many unknown tunnels under Haven that lead into the mountains. [[spoiler: Many people manage to escape the destruction of Haven by sneaking out through the tunnels, and the Herald narrowly escapes a rockslide they created to stop the Elder One by falling into a tunnel passage.]]
** If a dwarven Inquisitor talks to Old God Kieran and jokes about [[spoiler:trying to be taller, he responds, "But you can't be taller. Not without the Titans." Come ''The Descent'' and that little comment makes a lot more sense.]]
** Likewise, Dagna can comment on an experiment she did that suddenly made her feel huge, and as if she was tapping into some manner of dwarven HiveMind. Come ''The Descent''...
** And another one foreshadowing the big reveal in ''The Descent'': When first asking Cole about Templars, he says they're "heavy with forgotten songs, like Varric." [[spoiler:Despite being Stone-Senseless, Varric is still a Child of the Stone. Lyrium is the blood of the Titans and is used by Templars to give them their magic-nullifying powers. The Dwarves and the Titans that bleed Lyrium are closely linked. Further conversation with Cole on the subject only furthers the foreshadowing sense.]]
** In the main game, Solas makes a seemingly offhand, dry remark about something being impossible unless "we collapse the Veil and bring the Fade here so (he) can casually reshape reality." Come the ''Trespasser'' DLC and...[[spoiler: we learn that this ''wasn't'' an off-the-cuff joke -- that's ''exactly'' what he intends to do]].
** In the Temple of Mythal, in addition to the dragon statues found throughout the place, there are also [[spoiler:statues depicting a woman with dragon wings. Someone being both a woman and a dragon should seem very familiar to veteran players...]]
** In one instance of party banter, Varric talks to Iron Bull about how he "like(s) the stories where the villain was the man beside you the whole time" and that "the best villains don't see themselves as evil. They're fighting for a good cause, willing to get their hands dirty." [[spoiler:Sound like anyone in particular, Solas?]]
* ForWantOfANail: [[spoiler: The reason why the Elves lost Halamshiral. If the Jaws of Hakkon had not put Hakkon into a dragon and threatened Orlais with it, Inquisitor Ameridan would not have been sent to deal with it and ended up having to trap himself and the god-dragon in magic stasis. Ameridan, who was an elf, wanted a united front of both the Dales and Orlais against an impending darkspawn invasion; but without Ameridan's influence, the elves instead stood by and focused on their own while the darkspawn ravaged Orlais during the Blight, which severely cooled relations between the two. This would eventually come to a head at the Red Crossing incident, and from there, war broke out between the two, reducing the elves to what they are at present.]]
* FreezeFrameBonus:
** In the "Fires Above Trailer", Cassandra has ''Hard in Hightown 2'' next to her maps.
** Cole makes a few very brief appearances in "Champions of the Just" before he formally introduces himself to the Herald.
* FreudianExcuse: In one path of Cole's personal quest, [[spoiler:he discovers that the Templar who killed the original Cole was forced to drown kittens by "Louis."]]
** Subverted by Erimond: When Cassandra asks Cole if Erimond has a secret, hidden pain, Cole simply replies, "No. Erimond is an arsehole."
* FridgeBrilliance: Invoked in conversations with Cole. After recruiting him, you will overhear people talk about strange events occurring across Skyhold, which you can correctly trace to Cole and tell him to stop doing it. However, if you instead let him carry on and continue listening, you will eventually figure out that his weird actions set in motion chains of seemingly random events that ultimately help people or make their lives easier, better, and/or happier.
* FullFrontalAssault: The Avvar warriors encountered in the Fallow Mire appear to be wearing body paint rather than shirts. Including the women. This armor is available as DLC, so now the Inquisitor and company can do it too.
* FungusHumongous: The Arbor Wilds sport some quite large shelf mushrooms.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: G - L]]
* GameBreakingBug:
** Dorian's personal quest has a known issue where it may not trigger for some players. While this may be a minor one for most players, those that want to pursue a romance with him are less than thrilled.
** One of Sera's subquests involves playing pranks on the members of the advisory council. This quest places a random soldier in Cullen's office and removes Cullen himself (so that the prank can be set up). Sometimes, Cullen ''never comes back'', locking the player out of any of his sidequests or romance dialogue.
** There is a cave entrance in the Western Approach that should open after killing the High Dragon there, but it often doesn't. Fortunately, a Warrior can break the block with Grappling Chain.
** One of Solas' quests, "Measuring the Veil," has a nasty habit of not triggering the end of the quest, even after previous requirements have been met.
** From the multiplayer, there are several issues that result in enemies either stuck outside the players reach or a kill not registering properly. Neither would be that bothersome if it weren't for the fact that you have to kill ''all'' enemies in each section to advance. The only way to continue is for the hosting player to leave the match, which resets the current stage... assuming a new host can be found.
** The initial release of the game featured a weird bug in which the Inquisitor was treated by the game as both a male and a female simultaneously, and as both their class and another class simultaneously (e.g. a mage and a rogue). This bug had at least two game-breaking consequences. The first (arguably beneficial) consequence was allowing the player to romance {{NPC}}s who were only interested in the other gender. For example, [[https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/2nlgpt/video_i_just_romanced_sera_as_a_male/ a male Inquisitor was able to romance Sera, who is only interested in females]]. However, since the male actors did not record the lines for the female-only romances (and vice versa), these lines would only appear as subtitles, although they were still lip-synced. The second game-breaking consequence was that the Inquisitor received the trainers for another class upon arriving at Skyhold, thereby preventing specialization in their own class. The bug was fixed in Patch 2.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation:
** Cassandra brings up her ability to set lyrium on fire... [[ManOnFire including the lyrium that's in the blood of templars and mages]]. Not once does she display this power, even when it would be really, really handy.
** And on a further note, Cassandra asserts that Seekers are not Templars, giving her a completely different powerset without their specific AntiMagic capabilities. And yet, her in-game class is... Templar. Her specialization description explains that her Seeker training essentially grants her the same powers as a Templar without the need for lyrium, contradicting what she tells the Inquisitor in conversation.
** The impetus for allying with the mages or templars is that the dozen or so of each already in the Inquisition aren't enough to close the Breach. When you actually do it, you use... five.
** Cole has no supernatural abilities whatsoever [[CutscenePowerToTheMax outside of cutscenes]]. He does get a more effective version of the stealth skill tree, though.
** The Herald gets access to the missions in the war room long before they have any actual power in the Inquisition.
** As usual, issues of lyrium addiction, demon possession, darkspawn taint, etc. are brought up, but never actually become a threat to the party. [[spoiler:With one exception - Cullen's personal quest "Perseverance" deals with the issue of his lyrium addiction, and if it's not handled correctly, ''Trespasser'' reveals that he ends up a crazed homeless beggar.]]
** "In Hushed Whispers" has a bunch of problems. [[spoiler: Your two non-Dorian companions have been held prisoner for a year when you rescue them, yet they instantly equip their regular armor and weapons out of nowhere the moment they rejoin your team. They've also been infected with red lyrium, a substance known to massively increase the host's strength and overall physical capabilities, but it provides absolutely no benefit to the very obviously tainted companions. And why is Leliana still wearing her trademark chainmail coat and armored greaves after a whole year of ColdBloodedTorture?]]
** Even if your Qunari inquisitor has no horns, they will be prevented from wearing helmets as if they had them.
** If you complete "In Hushed Whispers" and choose to [[spoiler:give the Mages a full alliance rather than conscript them]], then when you next talk to Cassandra in Haven, she assures you that she doesn't disapprove of your decision despite her frustration with the Mages' demands... except that she's hardcoded to Greatly Disapprove if [[spoiler:the Mages are given a full alliance]].
** Related to the above, if you do "Champions of the Just" (the equivalent quest for the Templars), Cassandra's dialogue and behavior in the subsequent cutscene will always contradict the approval/disapproval message you get.
** The SadisticChoice in Iron Bull's personal quest is rather undermined by the fact that the enemy force [[spoiler: that will kill either the Chargers or the Qunari ship they're defending]] is near enough and small enough that you could have easily run over and wiped it out yourself in normal gameplay in less time than you spend arguing about it. In fact, you face more powerful groups earlier in the same level.
** When you finish a side quest, you will sometimes have to talk to one of your companions. This has to be done back at base, even if they are in the active party, because you cannot talk to party members in the field.
** The alleged menace of red lyrium. At least one camp in the Emprise du Lion is located in the middle of the stuff.
* GargleBlaster: ''Inquisition'' introduces the concept of "Grey Warden Conscription Ale." A Warden takes whatever liquor they can get, and just adds it to a mixture in their own personal bottle. Each bottle's taste is unique for each Warden. The "vintage" of each isn't a year, but the owner of the bottle, accompanied by a short phrase. You might even come across the conscription ales of [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII Hawke]]'s sibling if they became Wardens; Carver's is "Toast Them All!", while Bethany's is "[[NotSoAboveItAll Princess Piss.]]"
* GatelessGhetto: Despite how large the city is said to be, only a small market area is available for visits in Val Royeaux, save for a side mission or two.
* GeniusLoci: [[spoiler:Titans are '''massive''' creatures that resemble living cave systems, with ''lyrium'' for blood.]]
* GhibliHills: The Emerald Graves fit this nearly to a tee. Everywhere you look, you see giant verdant trees, with most of the artifacts being ancient elven ruins and statues.
* GiantSpiders: Mainly come in two flavors: the regular fantasy/slightly cartoonish look and a smaller, poisonous version (smaller comparatively, they're about the size of a large nug and resemble a bulky huntsman.) Then we get Fearlings and the Fear Demon who resemble spiders and make themselves look like more accurate arachnids, one the size of a car that feeds on humans, and another albino spider named Snowball the size of a small truck that does a JumpScare on you.
* GladiatorSubquest: Present in ''Jaws Of Hakkon''.
* GlowingEyesOfDoom: The "Enemy of Thedas" trailer features a Dalish mage with glowing purple eyes whose magic is strong enough to knock both Morrigan and the Inquisitor back.
* GodzillaThreshold: Exploited by the BigBad [[spoiler:when he makes the Grey Wardens think that they are all hearing the Calling. Their belief that they are all going to die soon leads to them using BloodMagic and performing HumanSacrifice to summon a demon army to help them wipe out the last two Old Gods before they are all gone]].
** There's a second, more subtle example in the game. The Qunari, who are the ScaryDogmaticAliens of the setting, are so concerned by the Breach and resulting rifts that ''they'' approach ''you'' looking to form an alliance to combat the menace. According to Iron Bull, this is the first time in recorded history that the Qunari have ever voluntarily considered an alliance with anyone not of the Qun for any reason.
* {{Gonk}}: Aside from your ability to make the Inquisitor into such an abomination that he/she would make the Maker turn from Thedas again, this is the best way to describe some of the {{NPC}}s, such as the inept mage who runs afoul of Solas during his personal quest.
* GoodPaysBetter: Taking merciful options when you judge a prisoner pays off most of the time, usually in additional War Table missions where the prisoner renders a service to the Inquisition. The only [[UngratefulBastard exception]] is [[spoiler:Denam, who leads troops into an ambush]]; even then, [[spoiler:Cullen]] can turn the situation to the Inquisition's benefit.
* GreatOffscreenWar:
** Currently in-progress: Orlais has suffered a civil war that's mostly all over except for the crying. You just have to show up at a party and pull a few strings to control who gets what afterwards. If you visit the actual battlefields in the Exalted Plains, you find out that both sides are so bogged down fighting the demonic invasion, a major undead outbreak, and a rebel faction of deserters from both sides they wouldn't be interested in fighting each other even if there hadn't been a truce called.
** Party banter between Solas and Cole has Cole ramble about how a "war in the Fade" would be a terrible thing to see. [[spoiler:In Solas's backstory in his true identity as Fen'Harel, he is infamous for ending a war between the Elvhen Pantheon and the Forgotten Ones. The game also reveals that Elvhen gods can enter the Fade physically at will, and banter with Dorian has Solas acknowledge that physically entering the Fade has only become stigmatized in ''human'' history.]]
* GroundPunch: [[GiantMook Brute]]-type enemies love to do this with their friggin' huge [[DropTheHammer two-handed mauls]] whenever they don't feel like performing their equally devastating SpinAttack. A basic smash at whoever's standing in front of them is dangerous enough already, but they also have an advanced version where they flail around wildly, pounding everything around them with repeated strikes that deal massive damage. Unsurprisingly, this is the bane of any squishy rogue caught in the process of backstabbing the raging brute.
* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: The [[FacelessMooks chevalier guards]] at the Winter Palace ball react to absolutely ''nothing'' that's going on around them. The fabeled Inquisitor is stuffing coins, strange statues and top-secret documents into their pockets by the truckload? No problem. The same Inquisitor climbs up a flower lattice to sneak into off-limits areas of the palace? Sure, why not? [[spoiler:Duchess Florianne comes running out of the Grand Ballroom after just having stabbed the empress InTheBack?]] MoveAlongNothingToSeeHere. It's possible they're under orders from Duke Gaspard to stay out of whatever might be happening this evening, but it's still a strange sight.
* GuestStarPartyMember: In a number of major battles, one or more non-companion characters may fight beside your party. These may include, but are by no means limited to, [[spoiler:Hawke, Alistair, Stroud, Morrigan, Cullen, and Leliana]].
* GuideDangIt:
** The solution to the Orlesian civil war can be altered by bad dialogue choices to your companions before what seems to be the choice point. Ironically, this actually ''isn't'' explained in the guide.
*** [[spoiler:Celene, Gaspard and Briala can be forced to set aside their differences and work together]]... provided you found ''every single'' Halla statuette and opened ''exactly'' the right doors with them, which is unlikely to happen without a strategy guide in your hand.
*** [[spoiler:The reconciliation between Celene and Briala as friends and lovers]] requires that you find the aforementioned Halla statues, use them to open one specific door, talk to Celene's assistants, then Celene, and then Briala with the correct dialogue choices, and then make the correct choices again at the end of the quest. Oh, and maintain at least 85 Court Approval at the same time.
** The [[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Divine_election exact factors]] that determine whom [[spoiler:the Conclave elects as the new Divine]] in the epilogue were a major mystery until someone actually hacked into the game files; even since then, some conditions are still ambiguous.
** Most of the time it doesn't really matter who you pick for a War Table mission... but sometimes you need to pick one specific advisor to continue to the next stage of the chain. Often, there is no way of knowing which outcome is the correct one. For example, choosing Josephine to ask local nobility to [[spoiler:help protect the Dalish Inquisitor's clan from bandits]] results in a total massacre. Likewise, taking Cullen's advice to flip off people upset about [[spoiler:Blackwall's fake Grey Warden treaties]] turns out to be the "correct" choice, rewards-wise.
*** The quest chain with Sutherland and his mini-adventuring company is a ''quadruple'' whammy in this regard. First, if you don't take Cullen's advice for the first mission (sending Sutherland to help fight off the bandits) the quest chain terminates immediately. Second, if you don't go back and ''talk'' to Sutherland after every mission you won't unlock the next one. Third, if the wrong advisor (anyone but [[spoiler: Leliana]]) is chosen in third operation for them (A Test of Mettle and Crew), no further operations are offered. Fourth, due to a bug that was never patched, if the player completes a certain main quest before the seventh operation ("Sutherland and Company Missing"), the chain will not advance and Sutherland's company will be killed by darkspawn since the player is unable to rescue them.
*** If [[spoiler: you recruit the Wardens]], you can send them out on War Table missions. However, choosing the wrong advisors can lead to the entire Orlesian branch of the order being wiped out and end a line of missions. It's also incredibly hard to predict, since it involves your main ally in the chain betraying you for no reason.
*** The [[spoiler: Dalish Inquisitor's Clan]] quest chain is perhaps the worst offender. It has the longest chain of personal quests from any Inquisitor's background, and ''every'' step of the way it is ''far'' too easy to make a "wrong" choice [[spoiler: gets the Dalish Inquisitor's clan massacred]]. What's worse, the choices with the "good" outcomes can seem counter-productive to the ones with the tragic outcomes, and sending the same advisor twice in a row often gets a tragic outcome even though said advisor did good work in the previous attempt. It's almost like the devs ''want'' the Inquisitor to [[spoiler: accidentally get their clan wiped out]].
** It's possible for [[UpperClassTwit Lord Abernache]] to survive the fighting at Therinfal Redoubt, but only if you refuse to do the Lord Seeker's ritual. This is never hinted in the game, nor is there any explanation offered for why the Red Templars don't kill Abernache if you refuse to do the ritual.
** Finding the unique Evanura sword requires finding a codex in one region, then visiting a landmark in another region. Even worse, due to a bug(?), the instant you mark the landmark, you must use the search command and ''immediately'' loot the sword, or it [[PermanentlyMissableContent vanishes for good]].
** It might not occur to some that one can thin the demons' numbers before the next wave at a Fade tear by using some manner of magic-dispelling skill on the spawn points before the demons spawn. Warriors can also attack the spawn points for the same effect, although they can usually only defeat one in the time allotted.
** At the Emerald Graves, most players run into a bunch of torches that don't stay lit in the Lion's Pavilion. This is actually one in a series of puzzles in that region that leads to a prize at the end. There is no journal entry for this, and unless you know exactly what to look for, it is unlikely you'll reach the end of the quest.
** Making the wrong dialogue choice with Leliana ([[spoiler: telling her to kill the traitor OR not saying anything]] towards the beginning of the game hardens her and [[ForWantOfANail prevents certain outcomes in her personal quest]], which occurs towards the end of the game. The game gives no indication that this is an important choice. And just because you choose this first time don't think Leliana will let you off the hook that easily: she will remained hardened if certain choices are made, clearly, but to save her soul you have to pick specific dialogue during her personal mission (that is, not tell her sacrifices have to be made, and hiding that ruthless streak is generally a good idea as well.)
** The specialization quests require extremely rare items with no indication of where to look, and are not tracked on the map.
* GuiltBasedGaming: A [=BioWare=] tradition. The first gameplay demo shows the Inquisitor deciding whether their soldiers should stay with the wounded, protect the nearby village of Crestwood, or push an assault on the attacking Red Templars. The Inquisitor picks the last one - and Crestwood is burned to the ground by the time they return.
** Averted in the game proper, where this choice never actually happens. The closest would be which faction the Inquisition will approach to ask for help; but at the time they make this decision, the player doesn't know something bad will happen to the faction they don't pick.
* {{Handwave}}: One of the things from Varric's book on Hawke that you can ask about is the fate of Orsino and [[spoiler:how/why he turned into a giant monster for seemingly no reason]]. Varric is unable to give the Inquisitor a good answer, telling them that he doesn't know anything about Blood Magic and that the only reason he could come up with is that he was just really desperate.
** This is actually a minor running joke, since everyone has read Varric's book. Quite a few unpopular elements of the second game are explained away as part of his over-the-top writing style. For instance, Iron Bull asks about all the bad guys who drop from the ceiling as a second wave every single fight.
* HealingShiv: The "Healing Mist" grenade.
* HellGate: The Breach; a tear in the Veil that separates the Fade and the mundane realm, opens in the sky, allowing demons and other monstrosities to invade. Solas indicates it makes demons even more of a threat than they'd usually be, since it drives them mad to be thrust into the physical world. Intellectual demons are few and far between now; even the sinister and manipulative Pride demons are just big ugly monsters who want to bash your head in. The event that caused the Breach also caused numerous smaller miniature hellgates to form; the Rifts you find everywhere and have to seal.
* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: Like in the previous game, there's an option to make the headgear worn by the Inquisitor invisible to better show off the player's personal face customization. Played with similarly to the last game in that the helmet's stats and defense still apply, meaning the player will still want to wear a helmet at all times. In addition, any cutscene always shows the player and party without helmets.
* HerbivoresAreFriendly: Generally averted with the larger creatures. While gurns, brontos and druffalo won't attack you if they aren't provoked, they'll snarl menacingly if approached and will try to stomp your ass into the ground if they are wounded, even if you weren't the one who attacked them. This can be an added hazard in some areas: you can be battling giants in the Emerald Graves and suddenly have to deal with an angry bronto who got hit by an errant arrow or magic blast.
* HereWeGoAgain: If you play ''Jaws of Hakkon'' after completing the main quest, the Inquisitor can have this reaction after learning the Hakkonites' true plans:
-->'''Inquisitor''': [[spoiler:They wanted to send a god to destroy us? I just finished killing a god who wanted to destroy us!]]
* HeroWorshipper:
** The people of Thedas become an almost completely literal example, coming to look upon the Inquisitor as the Maker's chosen and calling him/her "The Herald of Andraste" and "Your Worship".
** Depending on the choices made in the world state imported, many characters returning from previous games may also feel this way about the Hero of Ferelden, and can be asked about their connection to that individual.
* HiddenVillain: The Inquisitor has a single, equal adversary working against them from the shadows.
* HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: The Rift Mage specialization trainer is Your Trainer. Who is she? She is Your Trainer. (Apparently she absorbed so much knowledge that keeping it all straight upstairs is difficult, and so she just clings onto the fact she's supposed to train you.)
* HitlerAteSugar: A weird case when talking to Dorian after allying with the mages. He actually ''"greatly approves"'' of this choice, but it's a little hard to tell when he lectures the Inquisitor that by giving them freedom they've also been given permission to act like mages in Tevinter, and you mustn't forget that Tevinter is Bad.
* HollowWorld: Possibly. In ''The Descent'', [[spoiler: you end up traveling below the Deep Roads and discover what appears to be a well-lit land with mountains rising from clouds below you. Inside a Titan.]]
* HonorBeforeReason: Averted by [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Svarah Sun-Hair]], the thane of the Stone-Bear Avvar in the ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC, to the clear surprise of the Inquisitor. The Stone-Bears have an oath of peace with the Hakkonites, but she says that oaths only last until they're broken and she's willing to aid you because the Hakkonites are short-sighted warmongers who make lousy allies. Rather than requesting that you find some proof of treachery that would justify turning on the Hakkonites, she just wants you to demonstrate that the Inquisition would make a better ally. (You actually do both.)
* HopelessWar: The Mage-Templar has become this, particularly on the side of [[spoiler:the Mages, who lost a lot of their leadership, rank and file to the Breach, and left with the reserves in Redcliffe, who split between honest rebels, terrorists, and Tevinter infiltrators.]] By the time the Inquisitor reaches Redcliffe, the situation has deteriorated so far [[spoiler: due largely to Alexius's meddling with time travel]] that [[spoiler:Fiona]] enters into a desperate alliance with the Imperium. On the Templar side, the [[spoiler: true Templars]] are fighting a losing battle against the [[spoiler: Red Templars under Knight-Captain Denam.]] Whichever side the Inquisitor chooses is saved only by their intervention.
* HorsebackHeroism: ''Inquisition'' features mounts for the first time in the series.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: A female Dwarf Inquisitor who romances the Iron Bull. A female Elf counts for different reasons - while taller, she's thin and waifish, whereas the dwarves are short and stout all around.
* HumanResources: A codex entry, found in a locked house in Redcliffe, reveals a terrible truth. You know those Oculara you use to find shards? Each is made out of a Tranquil skull.
* HumansAreCthulhu: Revealed as the reason why most summonings turn out demonic: [[spoiler:Spirits who are summoned from their regular plane of existence into the alien world of Thedas and forced to follow a specific and unyielding set of instructions tend to act the same way that humans summoned into the fade do: go completely insane and mutate into homicidal monsters from their own broken minds]].
* HurricaneOfPuns: In the ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC, [[spoiler: you actually have the opportunity to recruit Storvacker, the Hold-Beast of Stone-Bear Hold. This "agent" is basically a grizzly bear housing a spirit. During the [[ItMakesSenseInContext judgment of the bear]], the Inquisitor has an option to make some puns about it right from the start. If you recruit the bear, an operation opens up. Upon completion, Leliana asks Cullen if he thinks this mission was a [[IncrediblyLamePun roaring success]] to which Cullen just replies with a [[NoJustNo flat no]].]]
* IdiotBall: Perhaps it's due to all the lyrium they snorted, but the Sha-Brytol in the Unknown Abyss apply some spectacularly dumb strategies to defend their territory. They've set up a couple of magical barriers that only their proprietary Earthshaker weapons can destroy. Do they keep these things (and the eponymous warriors wielding them) as far away from the fighting as possible when the Inquisition starts rampaging through their lines? Of course not, they're basically in the first wave and continue to participate in every major battle from there on, making a mockery of their own fortifications in the process. If they'd just told the Earthshakers to sit tight in their barracks, the Inquisition assault would've been stopped dead in its tracks before it got anywhere near something important.
* InstantRunes: The Ice Mine and Fire Mine spells conjure these instead of physical devices; any enemy that steps on them will learn to regret it. Other mage abilities, like Energy Barrage for instance, have similarly elaborate runes as part of their casting animations.
* IShallTauntYou: The "Vanguard" tree for Warriors focuses on various ways to verbally assault their foes and to exploit their being "[[StandardStatusEffects taunted]]". At the very minimum, taunting keeps the enemy heat on [[StoneWall the warrior]] instead of [[FragileSpeedster their]] [[SquishyWizard group-mates]].
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Most of the main story quests are named after stanzas from the Chant of Light.
* IgnorantOfTheirOwnIgnorance: The Kirkwall Circle mages that bound Solas's wisdom spirit friend. [[spoiler:They talk down to Solas as if he knows nothing of spirits when ''they'' are the ones who corrupted it into a pride demon with their fumbling ignorance. The spirit dies either way, whether you kill it as a demon or make a last-ditch attempt to [[DyingAsYourself unbind it]].]] Solas is so ''furious'' with them that he'll kill them remorselessly if you choose not to stop him.
* ImplacableMan: Or woman, rather. On learning of Erimond's treachery, Warden Clarel strides ominously toward him, effortlessly shrugging off his fire attacks.
* ImplausibleDeniability: In party banter, Vivienne notes that Solas set his own coattails on fire. Solas tries suggesting it was "a figment of the Fade."
* InMediasRes: The intro for the game is hitting the start button and watching everything on the screen ''explode''. Shortly afterwards you're massacring demons and sealing Rifts.
* IncendiaryExponent: The Tempest subclass of Rogues is all about smashing a flask of some elemental concoction over yourself and charging into battle. Setting yourself on fire is just one of the several flasks you can use.
* IncitingIncident: Driven home by the Menu screen, which depicts the moments just before the explosion that caused the Breach. The moment that the player presses New Game, you get to see it happen, complete with a Templar shield flying at the screen.
* IncompatibleOrientation: While the Inquisitor can flirt with at least six of the eight romance options, at least two are guaranteed to turn them down.
** A female Inquisitor cannot romance Cassandra or Dorian due to them being heterosexual and gay respectively. However, still flirting with Cassandra can boost her approval provided it's handled delicately. Dorian flirts back with a female just for laughs, noting if his approval is high that he would gladly pursue her in "another life."
** Sera will emphatically turn down a male Inquisitor due to being gay, but will be a bit gentler a second time with high approval.
** A male Inquisitor, or a female dwarf or qunari, can flirt with Cullen twice. He'll write the first one off to kindness, but figures it out the second time and states his desire to be JustFriends. He can only be won over by a female elf or human.
** Only a female can flirt with Blackwall, and only a female elf can flirt with Solas.
** Averted with Josephine; the Inquisitor can win her heart regardless of race or gender, and she is not dependent on approval. Iron Bull can also be romanced by any Inquisitor, provided his approval is sufficient.
** Players may also flirt with Vivienne and Scout Harding even though neither can be romanced. However, if the player hasn't romanced anyone by the time they start the ''Trespasser'' DLC, dialogue with Vivienne implies that the Inquisitor recently started seeing Harding (though the Keep doesn't have her listed as a romance option).
** This also applies among companions. Sera is attracted to Cassandra, who finds her rather annoying as well as of the wrong gender. Dorian displays some attraction to Cullen, though he understands that he's uninterested. Iron Bull may flirt with Blackwall if both are in your party, though he will not respond to Bull's advances. Bull will also flirt with Cassandra, who tells him in no uncertain terms that it's never going to happen but she doesn't want him to stop. She even teases him about taking a bath.
** Josephine acknowledges Blackwall's feelings towards her, but both know it cannot develop, especially after [[spoiler: the truth about Blackwall's true identity.]]
* IncrediblyDurableEnemies: Enemies roughly on par with your party's level require absurd amounts of damage to kill even on Casual difficulty, and it only gets worse on higher difficulties or if they outrank you. Unleashing combo detonations as often as possible is borderline mandatory instead of the helpful but ultimately optional feature it was in ''Origins'' and ''DA II''. Otherwise it's disturbingly common for the entire party to hack, stab and blast away at a single humanoid enemy for multiple cooldown rounds before the guy finally bites the dirt and you can repeat the process with the dozen or so buddies he brought along. DLC-exclusive regions like the Frostback Basin or the Deep Roads are downright ridiculous because the enemies there scale with the player, with the Unknown Abyss deserving special mention since the resident [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent Sha-Brytol]] are also clad in the heaviest armor the game has to offer.
* InfinityMinusOneSword: The Masterwork Engraved Greatsword is both this and a DiskOneNuke for two-handed warriors. The schematic for it can be found in one of the first areas the player is likely to visit, it isn't locked behind a door or secret boss or anything, and it has the stats of a Tier 3 weapon. As such, two-handed warriors will often end up using it for most of the early game and probably a large part of the midgame as well.
* InformedAbility: Characters in ''Inquisition'' just won't shut up about the Grey Wardens' legendary combat prowess, yet the ones you fight aren't any stronger than the other types of human foot soldiers in the game. They even suffer from CutsceneIncompetence: when [[spoiler:the Inquisition lays siege to Adamant Fortress, the defending Wardens get curbstomped by bog-standard Inquisition soldiers in one-on-one combat, with only their summoned demons putting up any resistance worth mentioning]].
* InstantMessengerPigeon: Leliana maintains a virtual fleet of extremely reliable, competent messenger ''ravens''. They adore her, and some of them will obey ''only'' her. Ambient dialogue indicates she also gives one to Cullen later in the game.
* InsultBackfire: Any banter between Sera and Vivienne will usually start with the former trying to take down the latter, only to have Vivienne be either complimented or turn the prank back around at Sera.
* InterfaceSpoiler:
** A banter between Vivienne and Cole will have the former calling the PlayerCharacter by the title "Inquisitor". However, this can happen before the Inquisitor gains that title.
** The PC-only talent tree of the same name is also unlocked before that point.
** The War Table operation to gain access to the Black Emporium is available as soon as you unlock the war table in Haven, but it refers to the player character as "Inquisitor" and mentions the BigBad's name. You don't become the Inquisitor or learn the Big Bad's name until much later in the game.
** {{Loading screen}}s seen just after [[spoiler:the destruction of Haven]] show the exterior of Skyhold, even though the Inquisition hasn't gotten there yet.
* AnInteriorDecoratorIsYou: Most of the customization items you can acquire for Skyhold are purely cosmetic, although some of the decorating schemes do have codex entries attached to them.
* IronLady: In addition to Vivienne (detailed on the character page), there's apparently Varric's editor. She runs half of the Kirkwall Coterie and [[GrammarNazi once killed a man over a semicolon]].
* {{Irony}}: If a Dalish Inquisitor wears a [[http://mattrhodesart.tumblr.com/post/107236248281/dalish-tattoos-mike-laidlaw-turned-his-override pattern of vallaslin]] honoring Mythal and then [[spoiler:drinks from the Well of Sorrows, thus actually becoming bound to Mythal.]]
* IronicEcho: During the Grey Warden arc, your first encounter with Erimond sees him give the Grey Wardens' creed a sinister twist by using "In death, sacrifice," to refer to ''blood'' sacrifice. [[spoiler:And in the end of that arc, Clarel turns it around ''again'' as she's mortally wounded, reciting it before she blasts the pseudo-Archdemon with lightning. She falls to her death before she can recite the final third of the creed - but her actions bring the sentiment across.]]
* IsometricProjection: Not technically isometric, but definitely a throwback to the isometric view in ''Franchise/BaldursGate'', the (PC-only) tactical overhead view from ''Origins'' returns in ''Inquisition'' for all platforms.
* ItHasBeenAnHonor: Delivered to or by the Inquisitor and some companions before going to finish the BigBad.
** Also delivered by [[spoiler: Stroud]] if you choose to [[spoiler: leave him behind in the Fade]].
* ItIsDehumanizing: Sera and Vivienne consider Cole to be an "it" and refuse to speak to "it."
* ItsQuietTooQuiet:
** Parodied if you ask the dwarven barman what he thinks of current events.
--->'''Barman:''' Quiet. Too quiet. No, wait. [[DefiedTrope Just quiet enough.]]
** Played completely straight by Cassandra if she's brought to the Shrine of Dumat. To the surprise of no one, extreme un-quietness ensues.
** The Inquisitor is unsettled by the empty Chantry at Valence when they visit with Leliana. There is indeed something sinister waiting there.
** In ''The Descent'', the active party members may start listing all the things that Varric complains about hating; according to Blackwall, "quiet" is one of them.
* JerkassGods: The more the story reveals about the elven pantheon, the more it seems like only Mythal wasn't either terrible or useless. The youngest goddess, Ghilan'nain, filled the world with monsters, impressing everyone. Andruil went demon hunting until she started to become one herself and cause calamity and Mythal had to stop her. Elgar'nan almost destroyed the world because of a grudge until Mythal talked him out of it. Even Falon'din, who seems to be well loved, nearly wrecked the world out of sheer vanity and desire for more followers until, once again, Mythal stopped him. [[spoiler:And then Mythal was betrayed and murdered and Fen'harel got blamed for locking away all the gods.]] There were a few gods like June who didn't cause much trouble; but then again, it's explicitly stated that very few stories are told about him, implying that he didn't really do much at all (or that his stories were destroyed by the Tevinter Imperium because they had no use for them). Small wonder that Solas wants to keep anyone from being bound to the gods, though he seems somewhat more positive towards the Maker since the Maker doesn't ''do'' anything, assuming He even exists.
** ''Trespasser'' sheds a bit more light on the situation. [[spoiler: Suffice it to say that Fen'Harel did in fact lock away the gods in retaliation for Mythal's betrayal and death, by creating the Veil between the physical world and the Fade. ''And now he wants to pull it down.'']]
* JerkassHasAPoint: Aggressive jerk he may be, but Bann Teagan brings up many reasonable points regarding the problems actively caused by the Inquisition and the danger of private army that has no oversight that interferes with the inner-workings of Orlais and Ferelden. [[spoiler:His fears that the Inquisition is susceptible to corruption prove to be well-founded when it's shown that both the Qunari and Solas have completely infiltrated the organization with their spies and use them to further their goals while using the Inquisition as cover.]]
* KarmaHoudini: Cole's personal quest involves confronting a Templar [[spoiler:who was responsible for the original Cole starving to death through his negligence]]. Cole is ready to "kill him [[spoiler:back]]"; the Inquisitor can promptly promise to help with the killing, but Solas and Varric agree that this is out of the question and dismiss the possibility out of hand. The worst that can happen to him is [[spoiler:being shot at with an unloaded crossbow in order to teach Cole a valuable lesson about how Revenge Doesn't Make You Feel Better]]. The other option is [[spoiler:he gets spirit amnesia therapy, so he doesn't even ''remember'' what he did; admittedly, this is the path in which his contrition and remorse are verified and we're shown his FreudianExcuse]].
* KarmaMeter: Your dialogue options and actions, such as asking for their input to a situation, will have your companions approve or disapprove. This also applies to your advisors, though it is hidden. Unlike other examples, choices that would gain disapproval are treated as equally viable, and some will be pleased with what you choose and others will be upset over the same thing. If their opinion of you drops too low, some allies will leave.
* KickTheSonOfABitch: One particularly evil and haughty Tevinter mage is brought before you and he's looking forward to death, since he thinks it'll let him be one with his god. Locking him up and throwing away the key doesn't faze him and only mildly pleases a couple. Handing him to the Wardens makes him sneer that their justice is no better than yours. You can make him Tranquil, the only option that truly upsets him; but this is controversial, few party members approve, and most will disapprove. Chopping off the son of a bitch's head is the only option that pleases everyone, victim included.
* KillerRabbit:
** A farmer in the Hinterlands asks the Inquisitor to retrieve his colorful pet ram, Lord Woolsley, who has given the farmer's family good advice for generations. Attacking Lord Woolsley causes him to turn into a rage demon. [[spoiler:Based on what we learn from Solas, about how demons are created when benevolent spirits become twisted, this would suggest that Lord Woolsley is the host of a spirit of valor.]]
** To many players, the druffalo. Although they only attack when provoked, their charge attack (coupled with their hefty guard) has led to many deaths in both the single-player campaign and multiplayer. In some areas, such as Crestwood, it's very easy for them to wander into a conflict and become aggressive.
* KingmakerScenario: The ball at the Winter Palace allows the Inquisitor to resolve the Orlesian civil war however they choose. [[spoiler: Unlike previous scenarios in the series, there is no clear GoldenEnding to work toward. The one that take the most effort lets the Inquisitor reveal that they have career-ending dirt on all parties and force them to work together, with the full knowledge that they remain in power only by the Inquisition's good graces; this only leads to them falling back into the same schemes once the game is over. Supporting Celene may or may not lead to stability, better rights for elves, or her continued support of the Inquisition, depending on how things are handled. In an unusual twist for this scenario, while Briala cannot rule Orlais herself, she can rule as a puppeteer ruler through Gaspard. However, Gaspard is still Emperor, and has a history of belligerently antagonizing rival nations like Nevarra and Ferelden.]]
* KneelBeforeZod: The Elder One caps off his first big speech with this, and does it again before the final battle.
-->'''The Elder One:''' Bow before your new God, and be spared.
* KukrisAreKool: Some daggers have a kukri model. ArtisticLicense ensues, however, because they're thrusting daggers, while real-life kukris are better suited for chopping strokes (as kukris are essentially "knives that think they're hatchets").
* LadyOfWar: Commander Helaine, the mage Inquisitor's Knight-Enchanter trainer, is imperious and authoritative and offers to grant you the same authority. When questioned about what she's actually ''done'' to earn that authority, she can't or won't back it up; apparently part of learning to be a Knight-Enchanter is to exude authority whether or not you actually have it.
* LamePunReaction: Cassandra to Varric, when you meet Scout Harding in the Hinterlands.
-->'''Varric:''' Harding, huh? Ever been to Kirkwall's Hightown?\\
'''Harding:''' Can't say I have, why?\\
'''Varric:''' Because you'd be Harding in... oh, never mind.\\
'''Cassandra:''' ''(disgusted noise)''
** Iron Bull can't help but drop terrible puns sometimes, and other party members will react accordingly.
--> ''(Seeing a giant owl statue in the Emerald Graves)'' ''OWL'' you doing? ''(Dorian groans)''
* LampshadeHanging:
** In a bit of a running gag, [[spoiler: every time you gain an advantage, one of the advisors will point out that it could be easily countered if your opponent wasn't a ''complete idiot'' who refuses to change any plan already in motion no matter how many times it comes back to bite him. This even gets a callback after he's dead and the Qunari plot in ''Trespasser'' comes to light; the advisors give several versions of "See? If he'd been smart enough to do this we'd have lost."]]
** After the series had previously presented acceptance of sexual orientation as a given, the Inquisitor may react with anything from outrage to baffled confusion (depending on player choice) when encountering a GayAesop story during [[spoiler: Dorian's personal quest.]]
* LaserBlade:
** The Knight-Enchanter specialization has its signature Spirit Blade ability. The quest for acquiring the specialization for your player character involves constructing the hilt for one.
** The Chromatic Greatsword, which may be gained by completing a mini-game in the ''Trespasser'' DLC, embodies this trope even more faithfully. When slung across the back, it appears as a simple hilt whose blade emerges lightsaber style when it is swung.
** The Prismatic Greataxe, added as a quest reward in the ''Trespasser'' DLC, consists of a staff which sprouts twin axe heads in the same manner as the Chromatic Greatsword.
** Also from ''Trespasser'' are the triplet swords Bolt, Brand, and Rime; the craftable version is called Brand. These consist of a one-handed sword handle, which creates a blade of elemental energy when drawn.
** ''Also'' from ''Trespasser'' is the Blade of Tidarion, a unique "staff" that is actually a hilt that projects a magical elemental blade. Despite its weapon class it's swung like a greatsword, enabling even a non-Knight-Enchanter mage to fight as a MagicKnight.
** Not ''Trespasser'' but the ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC introduced the various Hakkon weapons. It's unclear what their business ends are actually made of -- their connection to Hakkon Wintersbreath, an ice-based Avvar deity, hints at some sort of frost magic -- but they look like they consist of nothing but pure icy-white light and are exceedingly powerful. Unsurprisingly, the sight of entire squads of Avvar warriors (or your own team) wielding these glowy things is pretty awesome to behold.
* LastNameBasis: Everyone calls the Inquisitor by their surname, if a name is used at all; more often they address them as "Your Worship," "Inquisitor," or "Herald." However, Sera (romanced or not) will use the Inquisitor's name in her diary, and a romanced Cullen will use the female Inquisitor's first name when writing to his sister Mia. Her amusing response is viewable only in his codex entry near the end of the game, and by the time of ''Trespasser'', Mia herself is calling her brother's sweetheart by her first name too.
* TheLawOfPowerProportionateToEffort:
** It's offhandedly mentioned by one of the party members that back in the days of the advanced (but ultimately lost) Elvhen empire, some spells required ''decades'' to cast. These spells were apparently awesome to behold and blended with other magic to create an "unending symphony" of magical energy. But as Elves were immortal in that age, they didn't understand the concept of time, so such long casting seemed trivial.
** Focus Abilities are the most powerful by far, but have ''tremendously long'' charging times.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: A few times, usually via banter.
** Of particular note is Cassandra complaining to Varric that he always puts his characters through undeserved hell, and she wishes he'd hand out some happy endings. Varric points out that he does this (and regularly kills off characters) because happy, peaceful lives make for boring stories. Meanwhile, the player of this Creator/BioWare game can probably sympathize with Cassandra quite a bit...[[spoiler: especially if you're anywhere near the SadisticChoice involving Hawke in the Fade.]]
** Another example:
--->'''Dorian:''' Where do you get all your arrows, Sera? You have hundreds.\\
'''Sera:''' From your arse, that's where.\\
'''Dorian:''' My arse should open up a shop. It's apparently quite prolific.
** Or:
--->'''Dorian:''' Cole, you should be careful dancing around with those daggers while I throw fire.\\
'''Cole:''' It won't hurt me, it's friendly fire.\\
'''Dorian:''' [[YouKeepUsingThatWord That doesn't always mean what you think it means.]]
** Nugs are now seen in several areas wandering the surface. In previous games, nugs were said to only live underground. The codex entry for them has a character noticing this and wondering if killing Archdemons causes nugs to spawn.
** A running joke is having characters ask Varric about odd things from the previous book, which is the last game.
-->'''Bull:''' Hey Varric, I was reading your stuff. Where do your bad guys come from?\\
'''Varric:''' Well, some of them come from Tevinter, and some are Ben-Hassrath spies, but I like the stories where the villain was the man beside you all the time. The best villains don't see themselves as evil -- they're fighting for a good cause, willing to get their hands dirty.\\
'''Bull:''' All right... that's really deep and all, but I meant "where do the bad guys come from, ''literally?''" The way you write it, it's like they just fall from the sky and land on top of the hero.\\
'''Varric''': I like to leave some things to the reader's imagination.
* LeeroyJenkins: The Charging Bull ability turns your AI warriors into this. The purpose of the ability is to charge through enemy lines and then stop, turning to attack them from behind. Not the AI, though. It just keeps going... and going... [[ArtificialStupidity and going...]] A patch eventually altered the AI behavior for the talent, and they now stop once they impact their target.
* LegacyCharacter: Dowager Lady Mantillon, apparently; the original was killed in the backstory of ''Literature/TheMaskedEmpire''.
* LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain: According to Varric, this is what the Qunari said when they took away the Dreadnought wreck in Kirkwall. He thinks it's the closest they'll ever get to an apology.
* LethalJokeItem: [[spoiler:The EasterEgg item "Ardent Blossom." It's a crown of white flowers... which adds a pretty hefty (for a helm) 41 armor and also negates 25% of a foe's armor on-strike.]]
** "A Jar of Bees" also qualifies. Inflicting the "BEES!" ([[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer seriously]]) status effect on an enemy causes it to panic and then take more damage over time than any other effect, enough even to keep ''dragons'' grounded. Creatures immune to panic will still take damage. Fully upgrade the recipe and not only will the effect jump to the nearest enemy should the first die, it can inflict two enemies with every grenade thrown.
* {{Leitmotif}}: The game is full of them.
** The melodic line of the game's main theme pops up a whole lot when things are intense or emotional, usually very skillfully executed. Eventually, it's revealed to be an instrumental version of a Chantry hymn titled "The Dawn Will Come."
** The theme you hear upon entering Val Royeaux is sung in the tavern as "Empress of Fire." The Emerald Graves also uses a few chords of the leitmotif. Likewise, the theme played in the Hinterlands is "Samson," named after the leader of the [[spoiler:Red Templars]].
** The "Thedas Love Theme" plays when you and your love interest get intimate and romantic [[spoiler: and also when Solas breaks up with a romanced elf Inquisitor]].
* LevelScaling: Averted for Rifts and High Dragons. Everything else gets scaled within a certain level range depending on the zone or intended level range for major story missions (which is shown when you are about to start one). The "Even Ground" trial makes enemies always match your current level.
* LighterAndSofter:
** In a truly bizarre case, ''yes''. After the relentlessly cynical ''Dragon Age II'', this game is way more idealistic. Your party members are generally nicer, both to you and to each other; the mages and Templars have both been humbled a bit after years of war; and the Chantry looks like it's starting to learn from its mistakes. And, best of all, the color palette is much more vibrant.
** It's not only your companions, either. Much like the Warden in ''Origins'', the Inquisitor can be played as incredibly selfless, humble and heroic, and in fact is viewed as a messianic figure. The Chantry (already portrayed as reasonable and well-intentioned, if mired in bureaucracy and typical power-struggles) has a lot of sympathetic characters, and it has some truly noble goals amidst all the political nonsense. And unlike ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', here your actions change the world for the better.
** [[spoiler:Becomes a SubvertedTrope with regards to the ''Trespasser'' DLC. The final conclusion of the game is that the world is on the brink of ''multiple conflicts on multiple fronts'', with Tevinter and the Qunari, Fen'Harel's plans, the mysterious conflict happening in Weisshaupt, and all the odds and ends you did not resolve in the main game. If anything, it's more ominous than the conclusion of ''Dragon Age II''.]]
* LimitBreak: Focus Abilities are exceptionally powerful spells and skills that can only be used through teamwork, building up over time as your party coordinates attacks and brings down enemies. Inquisition Perks can be spent to gain more focus bars, which are spent all at once to make the abilities more powerful. A character's Focus Ability is determined by their specialization; there are nine specializations, one for each companion.
** The Inquisitor:[[note]]The Inquisitor is the only character that potentially has access to up to three Focus Abilities[[/note]] Mark of the Rift. Causes damage in a large area and can banish demons outright.
** Templar (Cassandra): Rally. All party members gain guard, additional mana/stamina regeneration, and damage resistance for fifteen seconds. Additional focus improves the effect.
** Champion (Blackwall): Counterstrike. The user draws the attention of all enemies, gains full guard, and automatically counters all melee attacks. Additional focus lengthens the duration.
** Reaver (Iron Bull): Rampage. The user attacks faster, causes more damage per hit, and absorbs enemy health for ten seconds. Additional focus increases the effect.
** Assassin (Cole): Cloak of Shadows. All party members are made invisible for a set amount of time. Additional focus lengthens the duration.
** Tempest (Sera): Thousand Cuts. A target and any other enemies surrounding it are attacked many times. Each hit strikes for three hundred percent of a normal attack. Additional focus increases the number of hits. Made especially ridiculous because the Tempest specialization also includes the ability Flask of Fire, which lets the character use all abilities without cost or cooldown and that applies to focus abilities as well. This means the only drawback of focus abilities, that focus takes a long time to charge, is completely negated and the abilities can be used whenever Flask of Fire is off cooldown, which is once every 30 seconds.
** Artificer (Varric): Hail of Arrows. Any archery ability is used twice at once for a set amount of time. Additional focus increases the duration.
** Knight-Enchanter (Vivienne): Resurgence. All party members, both conscious and KO'd, are fully healed and a glyph is placed that continues to heal all party members within it every second for ten seconds. Additional focus increases the amount healed by the glyph.
** Necromancer (Dorian): Haste. Increases the party's speed by eighty-five percent. Displayed as the rest of the world being slowed while the party moves normally. Additional focus increases the duration.
** Rift Mage (Solas): Firestorm. Rains flaming meteors over a six meter radius. Each individual meteor causes a hundred-fifty percent of a normal attack. Additional focus increases the number of meteors.
* LiterallyShatteredLives: Any foe who suffers a death blow from a magical frost effect will freeze solid, then explode in a blast of blood and frozen bits. On a gameplay mechanic level, combos can be performed by a mage freezing a foe solid with frost magic and then any rogue or warrior using a talent that deals a single particularly hard-hitting blow, dealing the "Shattering" effect, [[OneHitKill killing them instantly.]] [[ContractualBossImmunity Only low-leveled foes can be killed this way.]] In-universe, the Iron Bull ''loves'' doing this, and in banter keeps asking Vivienne to set them up.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: Quite a few side quests are named after literature:
** [[Literature/SnowWhite "Bring Me the Heart of Snow White"]] is Vivienne's personal quest.
** [[Literature/MobyDick "Call Me Imshael"]] is the name of a quest offered by Ser Michel in Emprise du Lion, which involves tracking down the titular demon.
** [[Literature/LordOfTheRings "They Shall Not Pass"]] is another quest in Emprise du Lion, which involves rebuilding a landmark bridge.
* LivingRelic:
** Abelas and the other guardians of [[spoiler: the Temple of Mythal are elves from a time before the fall of Arlathan. They spent most of this time asleep, and only awaken to defend the temple from outsiders.]]
** [[spoiler:Solas also comes from a time before the fall of Arlathan, [[PhysicalGod although he was a bit further up the hierarchy.]] And if the legends are true, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero he was responsible for its ruin.]]]]
** [[spoiler:[[BigBad Corypheus]]]] is from ancient Tevinter, and remembers when it was at the height of its power. [[spoiler: Restoring it to its former glory is one of his primary goals.]]
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: If Alistair is King of Ferelden and the Inquisitor saves the mages, Alistair gets a cameo in which he meets [[spoiler: ''his mother,'' Grand Enchanter Fiona]], but she can't say anything and he has no clue.
* LostInTranslation: The Saga of Tyrdda Bright-Axe in the Hinterlands region, a collection of "Tales"-category Codex entries found when discovering eight specific landmarks in the region. It talks of Tyrdda Bright-Axe, the "Avvar-mother" who founded the Avvar barbarian tribe. Her legend mark "bright-axe" is described in the (translated) saga as such: "Bright her axe, unbreaking crystal, stirred to flame when temper flies". Historians studying the text apparently mistranslated the ancient Avvar word for "axe," as they thought her axe was topped with a crystal, or was made of some magically reinforced crystalline head, or even just really polished. It turns out they mistranslated "axe" from "hafted weapon". The weapon itself, after being found in a war table mission, is actually a [[FireIceLightning Fire-type]] MagicStaff topped with a crystal; Tyrdda was a ''mage''. In light of that revelation, the parts of the saga which talk about dreams, demons, and her love affair with the Lady of the Skies (a powerful spirit) make much more sense.
* LudicrousGibs: Give Dorian the Virulent Walking Bomb upgrade and this will happen a ''lot''.
* LudicrousPrecision: A Tranquil and a dwarf discuss possibilities of disposing of the Red Lyrium in the Emprise du Lion region after you take Suledin Keep. The Tranquil states the infinitesimally small odds of complete eradication of the red lyrium.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: M - R]]
* MadeOfExplodium: Qunari Dreadnoughts don't sink.
* MageTower: You can build one at Skyhold, though it's a cosmetic upgrade. In a minor example, Solas and Dorian (and Fiona, if you sided with the apostate mages) move into a tower off the main hall immediately after the Inquisition occupies Skyhold, but that same tower also functions as the library and the rookery for Leliana's birds.
* MagicKnight:
** The Knight Enchanter. It turns out to be a "Circle-approved" version of the elven Arcane Warrior style. Properly kitted-out, a Knight Enchanter is extremely powerful. Their spirit blade utterly destroys an enemy's magic Barrier or physical Guard meter and counts as Spirit damage, to which many demons are weak. Further passive perks let them regenerate their own barrier when they deal damage and regenerate mana quickly when near an enemy, so they can outlast an enemy while blasting through whatever defenses they put up.
--->'''Description:''' Wrapped in protective magics and wielding blades of arcane force, the Knight Enchanters are rare but inspiring sights as they lead the charge into enemy ranks.
** One of the multiplayer characters is more like an old-school Arcane Warrior (it's his class, too).
* MagneticPlotDevice: Can be equally applied to both the Anchor and the Orb - both cause the hero (an otherwise "normal" person) to get dragged into wackiness over and over. A description of the Anchor is offered as "a needle pulling thread". The Inquisitor is the thread, not the needle - where the Anchor leads, they follow. And because the Anchor is a function of the Orb, they're intertwined.
* TheMainCharactersDoEverything: PlayedWith.
** Averted with the War Table mechanic. Inquisition power is split between three departments: Forces (Military), Secrets (Spies), and Connections (Diplomacy). The three advisors in charge of these departments will ask the Inquisitor for clearance to send their subordinates on missions which suit their skills (although most missions can be completed by any department, some are more efficient than others). There's a massive number of missions in the game that the main characters never even have to touch.
** Played straight with the in-game map areas. The Inquisitor and his/her companions do ''everything'' here, including raiding keeps and forts, saving villages, performing random petty deeds, and fighting dragons and demons. Sometimes this is unavoidable (Fade Rifts can ''only'' be closed by the Inquisitor), but sometimes it's downright silly (the Inquisitor could send a small company or group of agents to deliver flowers to a grave site or look for a lost pet -- there's no credible reason s/he would need to do it themselves). However, in some zones the player does need to call upon the Inquisition to repair a bridge or the like. You can also run into soldiers searching for useful materials in zones where you have enough camps set up, and they will often have a chest with a few goods for you ready.
* MarkedBullet: During the Siege of Adamant, you can come across a boulder that one of your forces' trebuchets hurled inside. In a formal script, it has "All who walk in the sight of TheMaker are one." Beneath it, a more vulgar soldier wrote "Stick ''this'' in your taint, Blighty!"
* TheMarvelousDeer: Harts are a type of mount available to the player.
* MasqueradeBall: One features in the Orlesian Civil War arc.
* AMasterMakesTheirOwnTools: This is the point of PrestigeClass-unlocking sidequests. In order to take a specific specialization, the Inquisitor first has to construct a set of tools specific to it: for instance, Assassins need to forge a special dagger, Artificers require a trap-making kit, etc.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Is the "Herald of Andraste" really guided by some divine providence or are they just that outrageously lucky? The game gives no clear answer to this question, and it's up to the player how the Inquisitor interprets this. [[spoiler: Well, technically they ''are'' being guided by a divine being in the form of Solas, but whether the Maker is involved is up in the air.]]
* MeaningfulEcho: Cassandra at the start of the game and, quoted below, the Inquisitor (regardless of choices) at the end of ''Trespasser''.
-->'''Inquisitor:''' You all know what it is. A writ from Divine Justinia authorizing the formation of the Inquisition. We pledged to close the Breach, find those responsible, and restore order. With or without anyone's approval.
-->'''Cassandra:''' ''(smiles knowingly in the crowd)''
* TheMenFirst:
** An option during the assault on [[spoiler:Haven. You can either run straight for the Chantry doors, or put a great deal of effort and risk into rescuing various civilians and a couple of soldiers along the way.]]
** During the the battle at Adamant, you can either keep [[spoiler: Hawke]] with you the whole time, or send them away briefly to help your soldiers. Prior to that, you can also tell Cullen not to take any risks that would endanger the soldiers unnecessarily.
* Seen during one conversation with Leliana; you can either observe that the soldiers and agents are giving their lives for a worthy cause, or comment that they are not tools and should not be regarded as such. [[spoiler:This conversation is one of the two which factors into whether or not Leliana can be "softened."]]
* TheMerch: In-universe. Several requisition table tickets involve producing some manner of Inquisition-branded merchandise for public relations fostering.
* MissionControl: Leliana, Josephine, Cullen, and a few unnamed characters provide this in the multiplayer, framed as a report to the Inquisitor.
* ModularEpilogue:
** Similar to ''Origins'', although it only covers major choices rather than individual companions. [[spoiler: Morrigan]] narrates the immediate future of the Chantry, the mages and Templars, Orlais, and the Grey Wardens.
** ''Trespasser'' ends on one, covering the lives of your companions [[spoiler: and the fate of the Inquisition itself.]]
* MomentKiller: Several romances include people walking in on private moments. Cullen even manages to resurrect one moment after it gets stabbed.
* MontyHaul: ''The Descent'' showers you with loads and loads of loot. Most of it is pretty generic VendorTrash, but it adds up to obscene, six-digit figures if you keep hauling it up to the surface for sale. Potentially justified, as you are plundering ruins of the ancient dwarven civilization which have not seen a looter since the First Blight. On the other hand, the Deep Roads also serve as an epic [[MoneySink Power Sink]], since all the construction operations to access collapsed areas cost 8-10 Power points apiece, and you aren't getting much of it back, since there are no Rifts or similar down there. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, since you will still end up with a significant amount of Power left over even after the cost of main quests and opening new areas.
* MookMaker: Fade Rifts continuously summon demons until the Inquisitor closes them.
* MortonsFork:
** You must choose whether to ally with [[spoiler:the mages or with the Templars]]. The group you don't pick will be partly destroyed, partly enslaved by the Elder One.
** "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts" eventually changes from a "stop the assassin" plot to a [[spoiler:"stop the Empire from falling, no matter what the cost"]] plot. This means that you have several methods of resolving it, with many different possible outcomes for each person vying for the throne, but every last one of them has negative consequences. [[spoiler:The most direct consequence is that you must cause the death of at least one of the contenders for the throne. Other consequences are only revealed in the Epilogue, such as the fact that even if you do save all three parties, another war seems inevitable.]]
** [[spoiler:Whoever drinks from the Well of Sorrows]] will get a rude awakening just before the final battle.
** In the ''Trespasser'' DLC, [[spoiler: the Inquisition will either continue as a peacekeeping force, or be disbanded entirely. Retaining the Inquisition allows the Inquisitor to maintain massive resources for the upcoming battle against Solas, but at the cost of the organization being vulnerable to corruption and infiltration. Disbanding the Inquisition means that all its forces [[TheFellowshipHasEnded go their separate ways,]] and the Inquisitor loses almost all of his/her resources and connections, but a core group of TrueCompanions are still on task to stop Solas. In both cases, they are also recruiting new members for the upcoming fight.]]
* MovingTheGoalposts: Discussed between Mother Giselle and an Inquisitor that admits to a CrisisOfFaith after the discovery at Adamant Fortress. [[spoiler:Specifically, the Inquisitor says that everyone was wrong about Andraste being the one that gave them their mark and helped them escape the Fade. [[OccamsRazor Since it was Divine Justinia the whole time]], everything that makes him/her a ChosenOne is a lie. Giselle says that you were probably chosen ''indirectly'' and that the fact that Andraste saved you is MetaphoricallyTrue. You can then call her out for changing the definition of "Chosen" to sound like what everyone just ''wants'' to hear.]]
* MuggedForDisguise: An assassin does this to [[spoiler: Comte Boisvert]], leaving the real [[spoiler: Comte]] BoundAndGagged inside an antique cabinet. A humorous exchange ensues if the Inquisitor informs Josephine of the [[BangingForHelp strange noises coming from the cabinet]].
* MultinationalTeam: The Free Marches, Nevarra, Orlais, Ferelden, Antiva, Tevinter, the Dales, Par Vollen, ''the Fade'', and (secretly) ''[[spoiler:Elvhenan]]'' are all represented in the Inquisition. Depending on the player's choices, it can also have allies in the Deep Roads Dwarves, the Anderfels, and the Avvar.
* MultiPlatform: The game's target platforms are the PC, UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, UsefulNotes/PlayStation3, and UsefulNotes/Xbox360, with the PC version getting controls optimization for keyboard and mouse, like ''Origins''.
* MultipleChoicePast: A more literal example than most, as the online ''Keep'' is used rather than directly importing saves from the older titles, which allows players to tailor the major events of the first two games to their liking. For the new character, the general origin story is preset, but the player gets opportunities to choose how certain aspects of it played out in conversations.
** If the Inquisitor is from a human noble family, in one optional conversation with Josephine, Josephine will ask the Inquisitor if the Inquisition could take advantage of his/her noble lineage to gain allies, and will ask about the Inquisitor's relationship with his/her parents. The Inquisitor can give multiple answers, from their parents trusting them, to not being in their good graces, etc. Human mages have an optional conversation with Vivienne where they can discuss what their life was like in the Circle prior to the mage rebellion.
** A Qunari Inquisitor can discuss their views on the Qun - which they were raised outside of - as well as their involvement in mercenary work, including any particularly impressive jobs they completed.
** A dwarf Inquisitor can say whether or not they believe in the dwarven religion, whether or not they've been to Orzammar, what their job for the Carta was, and whether or not they miss that work.
** A Dalish Inquisitor can vary in their belief in Dalish gods, whether or not they enjoyed the Dalish life in the wild, what they feel the best path of the Dalish should be, and their opinions in general of humans and whether they are angered by humans' treatment of elves.
* MundaneUtility:
** The Barrier spell icon can illuminate dark areas.
** Magical green veilfire exists primarily to reveal hidden glyphs and solve puzzles, but since you're able to carry around a torch of it, it's also very convenient for illuminating the way around dark caves and ruins.
** ''Trespasser'' offers the Veilstrike Focus ability that turns your Inquisitor's devastating LimitBreak into... a magical flashlight with very limited duration. It also makes your party invincible, but that lasts for barely three seconds, so it's hardly any more useful.
* MurderInc: The House of Repose in Orlais is an exceedingly polite and honour-invested version of this trope, upholding a contract signed over a hundred years ago because not following through might tarnish their reputation, even though all the original parties involved are long since dead from natural causes. They are even willing to explain the details of the unusual circumstances to the victim-to-be as a gesture of courtesy (out of embarrassment according to their representative). And they have no objection to Josephine attempting to revoke the contract; they make no move to stop her from doing so, only acting according to the contract itself, and if she succeeds, they immediately cease and desist.
* MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers: A temporary example late in Act 1. Depending on whether you go after the mages or Templars, you will not be able to have Cole or Dorian in your party, respectively, until after the attack on Haven.
* MyBelovedSmother: The Inquisitor can find a letter in Skyhold addressed to one of Leliana's agents, Rector. The letter was written by his overly fussy mother, who nags her son to get a warm blanket and then complains over his insistence that he be referred to by his {{code name}}.
--> What do you mean I have to address the letters to "Rector?" Is that what they call you there? Why? Your name is [[EmbarrassingFirstName Wilbur Quigley]]. It's a good name. Wilbur was your uncle's name. He fought in the Battle of River Dane; we are all so proud of him. Are you ashamed of your given name? Why are you ashamed, Wilbur?
* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: A sign in the Herald's Rest Tavern:
-->Archery contest! Saturday! All challengers welcome*! Sister Leliana to judge! [[note]]* Except Varric and Bianca[[/note]]
* MythologyGag: Plenty, of course. For example:
** There's a ladder with the phrase "Can I get you a ladder to get off my back?" scratched into it, which was a notoriously annoying battle quote for a violent-voiced Warden in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins.''
** Another example occurs when Iron Bull complains about the taste of the concoctions the healer of his mercenary company makes. Said healer reminds him that they are poultices and therefore not meant to be ingested (which is what your party members did with them in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''.)
** Yet another involving Iron Bull takes place after his personal quest, if you sacrificed the Qunari Dreadnaught; Saar-qamek returns from ''Videogame/DragonAgeII,'' but this time in liquid form on the blade of a Ben-Hassrath agent sent after Bull.
** Similarly, a common complaint among fans is that Templars, the elite mage-hunting armed forces, seem to be totally oblivious of the apostates in your party in the second game walking around ''wearing full robes and carrying giant magical sticks''. In ''Inquisition'', there's a Dalish mage dressed the same way who insists she's carrying a "bow", not a staff, even as the Inquisitor and the rest of her team point out her PaperThinDisguise. (The "bow" is seen in the tie-in comic ''Magekiller.'' It actually ''is'' shaped like a bow.)
** When talking about the events at the grand ball the Empress of Orlais threw, Dorian remarks, "I hope you tried the ham they were serving. [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII It tasted of despair.]] Fascinating." The ham also gets a mention in PartyBanter when Varric and Blackwall compare the worst things they've ever eaten.
** In the ''Trespasser'' DLC, when a romanced Cullen [[spoiler: asks the Inquisitor to marry him]], there's a mabari playing around his feet who keeps barking in between sentences. This is absolutely because the mabari in ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins Origins]]'' was a notorious MomentKiller who barked audibly through all the conversations at camp, including the romance dialogues.
* NaughtyNuns: Right outside of the Haven Chantry at the start of the game, there's a Lay Sister that swoons over [[{{Hunk}} the Iron Bull]] after he joins the camp. During one conversation between herself and another sister, she comments that the reason she's walking funny today is because she went to his tent the night before to "thank" him for all his work for the Inquisition. Then he thanked her all night long. Like we said, she is a ''Lay'' Sister.
* NayTheist: Subverted; while the Inquisition is not a part of the Chantry and can have some anti-Chantry policies, it is still a fundamentally Andrastian organization, in spite of the fact that the Inquisitor him/herself ''can'' be a non-believer.
* NeckSnap[=/=]MurderousThighs: In the BadFuture of "In Hushed Whispers," Leliana uses her legs to break the neck of her Venatori torturer.
* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: A banter between Cassandra and Blackwall:
-->'''Blackwall''': So... You were the Divine's right hand, and Leliana the left?\\
'''Cassandra''': Yes. And if you make a joke about the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing, I will punch you.\\
'''Blackwall''': Heh, I'd never make a terrible joke like that.
* NewGamePlus: ''Trespasser'' released with a free patch that included "the Golden Nug" statue, which was accessible once you've completed the main story. Using it will save all of your schematics, recipes, herb seeds, and Skyhold decor, allowing you to access them all by using the Golden Nug in another playthrough, even if you're midway through the game.
* NiceHat: Apart from the Inquisitor's signature helmets, [[http://dragonaging.tumblr.com/image/70611138069 absolutely badass cowboy hats]] are also equippable. Vivienne has a [[Disney/SleepingBeauty Maleficent]]-style horned hat (a welcome change from previous mage headgear).
* NiceJobFixingItVillain:
** The [[ArcVillain Arc Villains]] for the Mage/Templar recruitment missions tell you the Elder One's plans in their attempts to destroy you. [[spoiler:Alexius accidentally sends you one year into the future in a botched attempt to erase you from the timeline, and you find out from your captured friends what happened. The envy demon taunts you with what it will do once it has impersonated you.]]
** When the Nightmare is taunting you in the fade, it [[IShallTauntYou lets slip]] that [[spoiler:it is the medium through which Corypheus commands his demon army. The Justinia-impersonating spirit then flips that around by sweetly remarking, "So if we banish you, we defeat the demon army? Thank you for that information." Nightmare realizes his folly with an angry grunt afterwards.]]
** From the resolution of ''Trespasser'' this could be leveled at [[spoiler: ''Corypheus'' of all people. Had he not gone on a power trip with the Orb of Destruction and used it counter to Solas/Fen'Harel's intent, things would have gone even worse for everybody.]]
* NoCanonForTheWicked: Hawke has nothing good to say about BloodMagic, even if they were involved with Merrill and/or personally practised it. Of course, [[spoiler: Tevinter mages and human sacrifices]] are also involved in this instance.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: A few minor characters are not-so-subtle parodies of various notable figures:
** [[Creator/HPLovecraft Baron Havard-Pierre d'Amortisan ]]is a noble adventurer from Orlais who authored many of the notes you find in the game that serve as codex entries for various creatures like the quillback and the bogfisher. He has a penchant for PurpleProse, typically dips into CosmicHorrorStory when writing, His scribe is named [[Literature/TheDunwichHorror Dunwich]], and [[http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonage/images/f/ff/Dunwitch.png/revision/latest?cb=20150329220443 he]] bears an uncanny, probably intentional, resemblance to [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/H._P._Lovecraft,_June_1934.jpg H.P. Lovecraft]]. You get to meet him and Dunwich in two particularly funny missions in the ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC.
** In the same DLC, you also come across notes written by an acolyte of one [[Creator/DavidIcke Ser Ycke]] who has apparently been passing out pamphlets preaching about the Tevinter alliance with [[UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories "moon-men" and the existence of ancient "snake-kings"]]. Other notes mention "Professor Whalen Vankin", a reference to the authors [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Vankin John Whalen and Jonathan Vankin]], who co-wrote several books about conspiracy theories. Another note mentions "Lord L'Rouche of Montsimmard", a reference to Lyndon La[==]Rouche, a notorious conspiracy theorist and founder of a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaRouche_movement self-styled political cult]].
* NoKillLikeOverkill: Varric has a chain of war table missions to track down whoever's ripping off his famous "Hard in Hightown" novels. Said ripoffs are apparently so hilariously bad that when Leliana's agents finally catch the perp with another manuscript in progress, they mention in their report that they burned it, doused it in acid and then threw it into the sea. This happens after the previous mission already made Skyhold's code breaker department want to ritually burn the volume they were to peruse for hidden messages.
* NonstandardGameOver:
** If your court approval drops to 0 during the Winter Palace mission, you will be forcefully evicted from the ball, and within a few in-story hours, [[spoiler:Empress Celene will be assassinated, Duke Gaspard gets accused of high treason, Orlais descends into chaos, and the Elder One basically wins]].
** There are also a few cases where a normal game over (entire party dead) results in a non-standard game over text describing the outcome rather than the usual "Your Journey Ends" message. Mainly these are during main story quests: in order, if your character dies at the start with just Cassandra you won't get a second chance; if your whole party dies before closing the breach; if you die in "Champions of the Just" or "In Hushed Whispers"; if you fall at Haven; if you are kicked out of the Winter Palace; if you are lost in the fade; if you die at the Dalish ruins or fighting the dragon; or if you die during the final battle.
* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: A codex in the Western Approach details an expedition that met this fate. After being trapped in the Blighted desert for three months, the remaining members of the Dorel party ended up eating the dead and drinking their blood.
* NoSell: The Champion warrior specialization "Walking Fortress" ability and the Knight-Enchanter's "Fade Cloak" ability. Walking Fortress lasts longer, while Fade Cloak recharges more quickly and allows you to bypass whoever's opposing you by walking through them. Their augmenting skills diverge them even further, with Walking Fortress generating [[StoneWall guard]] for every blow sustained under its effect (helping with tanking after the NoSell effect wears off), and Fade Cloak gaining the power to TeleFrag for massive spirit damage if it wears off while you're inside someone.
* NoodleIncident: Several throughout the game.
** Leliana has one involving a ball of twine, a measuring stick, and a handkerchief. She doesn't volunteer more information.
** Leliana also tells you it's not a party until someone's undergarments end up nailed to a Chantry board, which is also a CallBack to the ''Leliana's Song'' DLC.
** Sera might as well be the AnthropomorphicPersonification of NoodleIncident. Nearly every time anyone mentions or speaks to her, one of these comes up.
** Dorian brings one up when asked about Tevinter. It involves flying cows over Minrathous.
** When Cassandra starts to inquire about Templars in the Imperium, Dorian preemptively informs her that every rumor she's heard is true, "particularly the part with the grapes and feathers." She admits she was leading up to that one.
** The Inquisitor has the option to tell a story about themselves during Varric's Wicked Grace game, and since we only hear the beginning and the end of the story, it becomes this trope. The story will be different depending on the Inquisitor's background. Every version somehow involved a rabbit and Josephine declares it so scandalous that the Inquisition would be ruined if it became public knowledge.
*** If the Inquisitor is a Dalish Elf, the story starts with the Inquisitor's clan camping near a ruined fortress and hearing strange noises from inside and ends with naked people fleeing back to their village.
*** If the Inquisitor is a Qunari, the story starts with the Inquisitor's mercenary group hired to escort a merchant's caravan, and ends with the group's leader having a LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain moment with one of the caravan's mules.
*** If the Inquisitor is a Human and is not a mage, the story begins with the Inquisitor's aunt making the Inquisitor's entire family attend an opera, and ends with the Inquisitor's aunt refusing to speak to him/her for three months.
*** If the Inquisitor is a Human Mage, the story begins with the Inquisitor's Harrowing, and the Inquisitor feeling like something was missing, and ends with the Inquisitor somehow ending up in the Ostwick Circle's history book and the First Enchanter vowing [[LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain never to speak of the incident again.]]
*** If the Inquisitor is a Dwarf, the story begins with the Inquisitor being sent to collect protection money from an elderly seamstress, and ends with the seamstress ending up ''never'' having to pay protection money again, and the mere mention of her name apparently enraging the Inquisitor's boss.
** At one point, it is possible that the Inquisitor is required to pass judgment on a corpse. There is apparently precedent.
** The incident at the Conclave is, for the first half of the game, more or less a Noodle Incident. What was supposed to be a peace delegation between rebel Templars and mages ended with a massive explosion and a hole to the Fade itself torn in the sky, and nobody knows why because the only person who was there and didn't die (you) is suffering from massive TraumaInducedAmnesia.
** When Varric is discussing his novels with Cassandra, he'll mention that his editor is a stickler for grammar.
--> '''Varric''': [[SeriousBusiness She once killed a man over a semicolon.]]
** If taken to the Hissing Wastes, Blackwall shares a story about a disastrous search and rescue mission to the Silent Plains. After enduring a two-day MushroomSamba because they lost their food to a flash flood and had nothing to eat except some berries the newest member of the group had found (Blackwall thought a ring of nugs was singing sea shanties at him), they awoke to find that a bunch of ghasts had stolen their weapons and armor and were dragging them off to some pit.
-->'''Inquisitor:''' How did you escape?\\
'''Blackwall:''' You'd be surprised what a man armed with a rock and a headache can do.
** The death of the [[CartwrightCurse Dowager's]] ninth husband. The previous eight all had clear (if weird) causes of death, but all she says about the ninth is that it was the most violent tailoring accident anyone had ever seen.
* NostalgiaLevel:
** Redcliffe Castle gets taken over by the Venatori and, like in ''Origins'', you're tasked with reclaiming it. Leliana even brings up the secret passage from the windmill.
** The entire Winter Palace section is a salute to the fancy-party-plus-murder-spree ''Mark of the Assassin'' DLC from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' - which in itself was probably inspired by the ''Stolen Memories'' DLC from ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''.
* NotWearingPantsDream: According to one of the dialogue choices after their conversation in the Fade (and thus in their dreams) with Solas, the Inquisitor once dreamed they stood in front of the war table naked.
* NoticeThis:
** The player can invoke this on any interactible object by pressing the "Search" button, which not only highlights said object, but provides a guide for plot-important items or collectibles. To be extra thorough on it, not only does the radar HUD flash and display dots for location, but party members sometimes flat out tell you to use search (phrased appropriately, of course). Console gamers will also feel the controller vibrate in their hands when something hidden is nearby.
** In the Hissing Wastes, there are three ''ginormous'' hoodoos that dominate the map, easily the largest landmarks in the entire game. The Wastes are otherwise relatively empty, making it [[https://qkngames.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/10430369_10152861385769367_6386951496781133498_n.jpg?w=662&h=372 easy for you to see them no matter where you are.]] This is important for the "tomb raiding" quest there, because the only clues you're given are sketches of the hoodoos from specific angles to demonstrate where you need to be standing.
* ObliviousGuiltSlinging: On subsequent playthroughs, it becomes clear that the Inquisitor is often the cause of this in [[spoiler: Solas]] if they are friendly.
* OccamsRazor: ''Completely'' ignored by everyone who believes in the stories that Andraste herself rescued the Herald from the Fade. Absolutely ''no one'' suggests that it could have been someone else that was present at the Conclave. [[spoiler:And sure enough, it turns out to be Divine Justinia, literally ''the last person s/he was seen with''. Even the people present at the Temple, who see and hear the vision of Her Holiness talking to the future Herald, don't even posit that this was the option with the least amount of assumptions.]]
* OhCrap:
** A memory found in the Fade dates from the First Blight, from a worshiper of Dumat. He muses how the darkspawn are bringing the empire to its knees, undoing centuries of achievements, and they stand at the gate. Then he sees Dumat, and recognizes his god based on his iconography, for a moment believing he's answered their prayers... then he realizes that Dumat's scales are mottled and decrepit, much like the appearance of the darkspawn... and then Dumat breathes fire upon the city...
** Also in the Fade, the words "Oh crap" actually come up as a dialogue option when the Inquisitor is conversing with [[spoiler: Divine Justinia]]. If this option is selected, however, the actual words spoken will be "[[ArcWords Well, shit]]."
* OldSaveBonus: Seems to be averted for the first time in the series, but in an unusual way. ''Dragon Age Keep'', a web application that allows players to replicate their old world states for import to eighth-gen consoles, has manual input as the default method of world state creations (though it does try to salvage as much data as it can if you uploaded your DA player profiles to any of the Origin services earlier). Since everyone can use ''DAK'', those who jump into the series at ''Inquisition'' and choose to customize their backstory won't be at a disadvantage compared to those who recreate their personal world state from the previous games (unlike in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''). However, it's not much of a bonus in gameplay terms, though some circumstances can lead to some additional war table missions. The rest is chiefly background fluff; for example, you can ask Varric about the fate of your other teammates from the second game, or ask Leliana about her relationship with the Warden from ''Origins''.
* OnceMoreWithClarity: Near the start of the game we see part of Inquisitor's involvement in the events that set the plot in motion, where s/he sounds unsure and maybe a little clueless of... oh, in as many words, what's going on here. Later in the Fade, the scene plays proper where a ''furious'' Inquisitor storms in demanding answers.
* OnlySaneMan: One note found in the Exalted Plains consists of the journal of a mining foreman. At one point, a team of diggers breaks through into an [[IndianBurialGround elven tomb]]; the foreman immediately orders the tunnel to be closed off and for the teams to move to a different location to dig. The next entry is about him trying to convince the team that opened the tomb that [[GenreBlind 'vast elven riches' that probably don't exist aren't worth the danger]]. The last entry sees him trying to convince the rest of the miners to keep working (elsewhere) after the team of idiots has [[ForegoneConclusion predictably died]].
* OpeningTheSandbox: After the Inquisition is formed, you gain the freedom to explore three open world areas. [[spoiler:The sandbox fully opens after you acquire Skyhold and obtain access to the rest of the open world areas.]] This leads to the "Leave the Hinterlands" meme.
* OptionalPartyMember: Cassandra, Varric and Solas are the only party members that you are required to keep. All others can be turned away when they offer to join you; Sera, Vivienne, and Blackwall can be avoided entirely by simply not doing their recruitment quests. There are also other options to turn them away later (and Sera can be turned away at ''any'' time.)
* TheOrder: The Inquisition, an organization formed to restore order and root out conspiracy.
* OrderReborn: The original Inquisition was disbanded nearly a thousand years ago and became the Seekers of Truth when the Chantry was founded.
* OrphanedEtymology:
** Cassandra is occasionally described as "crusading" in the dialogue, even though the holy wars in the Andrastian religion are called Exalted Marches, and the etymological root of the word "crusade" is "Cross", a real-life Christian religious symbol.
** Varric, at one point, exclaims, "Jeez!" in party banter. "Jeez" is a shortened form of the "Jesus Christ!" blaspheme, even though in this world, Jesus has been replaced by Andraste.
** When asked about the hostile apostates in the Hinterlands, Corporal Vale says the rebel mages holed up in Redcliffe have washed their hands of them. This phrase originates from the Bible's account of Pontius Pilate washing his hands and refusing to condemn Jesus. Unless a similar thing happened with Andraste, they shouldn't know this phrase in Thedas.
** In talking about her and Leliana's service as the Hands of the Divine, Cassandra grumbles that Blackwall had better not joke about "The left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing." This expression originates in the Biblical book of Matthew, where Jesus instructs his followers not to make a public display of piety or good works.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent:
** Unlike the previous games, which each gave us a single high dragon to kill, ''Inquisition'' features a total of twelve of them, introducing a bit of variety in their appearance, abilities, and tactics. Ten are optional {{Bonus Boss}}es available in the base game, one only shows up if [[spoiler:the Inquisitor drinks from the Well of Sorrows]], and the last serves as the FinalBoss of the ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC.
** The Elder One has a pet dragon on his leash, which looks like [[spoiler:an Archdemon but is eventually revealed to be just a regular high dragon corrupted by the Blight]].
* OurGiantsAreBigger: ''Inquisition'' introduces giants to Thedas, and they are bigger indeed. They're at least twenty-five feet tall (Iron Bull barely reaches their shins), have huge tusks, and only one eye. Likely the first time players will see one is on the Storm Coast, where they find it fighting a high dragon... [[EstablishingCharacterMoment and the dragon flying away]][[note]]Though the dragon will just about always win if the player doesn't get too close[[/note]]. Not surprisingly, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou they are yet another entry on the list of hostile creatures]].
* OutOfFocus:
** Varric and his personal quest are the only time dwarves are involved in the game, other than a few war map missions and references to the lyrium trade. They also feature in ''The Descent'' DLC, which has some revelations about their past and a few temporary party members.
** Darkspawn also play a fairly minor role, even compared to ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII''. You could finish the main storyline without killing a single one of them [[spoiler: except Corypheus, of course]]. The low number of darkspawn encounters is also a plot point since it's a hint that [[spoiler:Corypheus' dragon isn't really an Archdemon.]]
** The Desire and Hunger demons apparently decided to sit this invasion out. This one really jumps out since Desire was always the type willing to directly make deals in previous entries, and thus TheFace for Demons as a faction.
* PairTheSpares: If both are unromanced, [[spoiler:the Iron Bull and Dorian]] will begin a relationship. There is also an indication that [[spoiler:Josephine and Blackwall]] share a mutual attraction if neither is romanced, though this doesn't go much of anywhere [[spoiler:after the truth about Blackwall becomes known]]. An un-romanced [[spoiler: Sera]] will also hook up with [[spoiler: Dagna]] after the main quest, and according to the last DLC's ending they're still together. Finally, in the ''Trespasser'' DLC, it's possible for [[spoiler: Maryden (the bard) to hook up with Krem, ZITHER!, or Cole (depending on how "Demands of the Qun" and "Subjected to His Will" were resolved)]] and for the Inquisitor, if they didn't romance anyone else, to start dating Harding.
* PapaWolf: A rare villainous example with Magister Alexius - [[spoiler: everything he does in the game is intended to save his son's life.]]
* PartyInMyPocket: Party members disappear when the Inquisitor is mounted and reappear when the Inquisitor dismounts.
* PartyOfRepresentatives: Party members embody various viewpoints and have differing levels of investment in certain issues, as discussed [[http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/08/23/creating-dragon-age-party-members.aspx?PostPageIndex=2 here]].
* PercussiveTherapy: Cassandra, Cullen, Blackwall, and Sera work out their anger on various inanimate objects. The Inquisitor can [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this by hitting ''anything'' in their line of sight, courtesy of the new click-and-hit function.
** Inverted with Iron Bull, who at one point performs a Qunari practice of overcoming fear by having other people hit him with a stick.
* PermanentlyMissableContent:
** As in the previous games, your choices may "close some doors forever". Unfortunately, while plot-related cases of "Lost Forever" are clearly designated by the game, some quest-related ones are not. In particular, the Creator/BioWare forums are filled with angry comments about several Requisition side-quests in the Hinterlands, which depend on items which can only be randomly dropped by the mages and Templars which roam the area... Except that, if you've finished a certain couple of main story quests (both of which you're likely to receive many, many hours before you ever get those Requisitions, since they only appear ''after'' one that requires a resource from a high-level area), the mages and Templars won't respawn again. Already finished off all the mobs? Your choices are to either restart the game or reload a save from before then, potentially losing dozens of game hours. Given that the fans of [=BioWare=] games tend to be completionists by nature, this didn't go well by them. Requisition quests from the zones are effectively infinite, but that's not readily apparent.
** Most of the companions cannot be recruited after a certain point. For example, if you [[spoiler:go to Adamant]] without having recruited Blackwall, he disappears. In fact, everyone but Cassandra, Varric and Solas is optional and can be lost forever if their recruitment missions aren't completed in time or certain dialogue choices are made (thankfully the latter are clearly labeled in each case).
** The same goes for the ''entire'' ''Trespasser'' DLC: Once you activate it on the War Table, ''all'' previous areas, including Skyhold itself and the ''other'' [=DLCs=], are blocked off; and once the DLC is complete, it automatically goes back to the start menu. It truly is meant to be the mission saved for last. Fortunately, this one also comes with a big red warning message.
* PlayableEpilogue: You can continue to explore the world after you complete the main questline, including all DLC.
* PlayerHeadquarters:
** The Inquisition's headquarters, Skyhold, is a central area where the player can speak to their companions, similar to the party camp in ''Origins''. The fortress is also customizable to some degree, similar to Admiral Anderson's apartment on the Citadel in [=ME3=]. The Inquisition gains other fortresses as the story progresses.
** The village of Haven serves as the Inquisition's temporary headquarters until the player gains control of Skyhold.
* PlayerParty: As in the previous titles, you can switch control to any member of your current party at will. This is even used for a small EasterEgg in ''Jaws of Hakkon.'' [[note]]With Varric in the party, visit the friendly Avvar village and go to the shop belonging to Trader Helsdim. Switch the active party member to Varric and interact with Helsdim to have him {{squee}} about meeting the famous author.[[/note]]
* PlotCoupon:
** "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts" is ''built'' on this trope. To unlock certain options for the plot, you need to both collect the many Halla statuettes hidden around the palace and ''also'' open the correct doors for the outcome you want (as it's not possible to open them all in a single playthrough). You must also talk to specific people at specific times and make specific choices. Failing even one necessary step will lock the player out of that solution.
** A few judgments rely upon the player having specific origins, perks, and other options in order to have as many choices as possible. In particular, Mistress Poulin and Knight-Captain Denam both have options which can only be opened [[spoiler:if you've found evidence that they're lying.]]
** The Knowledge perks in particular (History, Arcane, Underworld, and Nobility) can affect certain quests and judgments. For example, there's one option to resolve Sera's quest in Verchiel which is only available if the Inquisitor has the Nobility Knowledge perk, while "All New, Faded For Her" has an option of which Solas greatly approves - but you can only do it if the Inquisitor has the Arcane Knowledge perk.
* PointAndClickMap: Unlike in the previous games, you can travel quickly between known places (mostly villages and claimed camps) even on the local map of the area, simply by selecting your destination (unless you are in combat) -- which is probably due to the sheer size of outdoor levels.
* ThePowerOfFriendship: Focus is a resource that is built up in combat through teamwork and allows the party to use powerful abilities such as the game's only true healing spell.
* PowerfulPeopleAreSubs: Apparently the Inquisitor, if you romance Iron Bull. He decides the Inquisitor has so much on their plate, they'd appreciate someone else taking charge in the bedroom.
* PowerupLetdown: Once you've acquired a bunch of tier 3 schematics and some decent materials, the equipment you can craft will be so much better than anything you can find that even the game's most powerful uniques won't be of much use to you anymore. When you're playing on average difficulty settings where there's some leeway to your gear quality, refraining from crafting all that overpowered stuff can make for a much more enjoyable gaming experience since it gives you the satisfaction of finding something awesome after a difficult battle instead of some crap you sell off at the first opportunity.
* PowerupMount: You can now ride mounts to get around areas faster, and can amass an entire stable's worth of them. Many of these are different breeds of horses, but there are also other, more fantastical mounts, including dracolisks, nuggalopes, and the truly bizarre Bog Unicorn. [[note]]A "unicorn" whose "horn" is actually a sword jammed through its undead horsey head.[[/note]]
* PreOrderBonus: The "Flames of the Inquisition" [=DLC=], which includes weapons, gear, and an armoured horse.
* PrestigeClass: This time around, each character can only have one specialization, but it will have more effect on the story. Each companion has a set specialization that matches those available to the player (unlocked automatically after reaching Skyhold).
** Templar is a Warrior specialization that focuses on damaging magical enemies and inspiring the party. Cassandra is a Templar.
** Champion is a Warrior specialization that focuses on controlling the battlefield and protecting the party. Blackwall is a Champion.
** Reaver is a Warrior specialization that focuses on causing more damage as they take more damage. Iron Bull is a Reaver.
** Assassin is a Rogue specialization that focuses on spike damage and avoiding enemy attacks. Cole is an Assassin.
** Tempest is a Rogue specialization that focuses on enhancing their abilities with unique potions and strengthening their ability to use items. Sera is a Tempest.
** Artificer is a Rogue specialization that focuses on laying traps to damage the enemy and disrupt their movement. Varric is an Artificer.
** Knight-Enchanter is a Mage specialization that focuses on close-quarters combat and protecting the party. Vivienne is a Knight-Enchanter.
** Necromancer is a Mage specialization that focuses on terrorizing enemies and controlling the dead. Dorian is a Necromancer.
** Rift Mage is a Mage specialization that focuses on damaging and weakening enemies while controlling the battlefield. Solas is a Rift Mage.
* PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo:
** Hawke is contacted by Varric and aids the Inquisition after the reveal of [[spoiler:Corypheus]]. You can customize Hawke's appearance and personality.
** The PC from the first game can get a minor cameo through a letter to you, if still alive. They are away on urgent business, and are unable to help against the Elder One. Depending on the details of the world state you import, the letter may include details related to their love interest from ''Origins''; if said love interest is [[spoiler:Leliana or Morrigan, both of whom are at Skyhold with you at the time]], they will even send along a second letter for the beloved's eyes only.
** Played with concerning the multiplayer characters available. In passing around Skyhold, you may see them congregating a few at a time. They're also mentioned in some of the War Room reports.
* ProducePelting: Attempted defiance of the trope by officials in Val Royeaux. A sign in a forum area states that vendors that sell "loftable groceries" will be closed for a period before any scheduled public forum in the square.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: Courtesy of the new ''Frostbite 3'' engine and some subtle [[ArtEvolution redesigning]]: the world of Thedas and the people inhabiting it look absolutely stunning - minus the occasional {{Gonk}}. Varric, Cassandra, and Cullen manage to look better than ''[=DAII=]'' without sacrificing the effect the [[WarIsHell three year war]] [[GoodScarsEvilScars had on them]]. Morrigan, Leliana, Alistair, Anora, and even Loghain (if he survived) look better than they did in''[=Origins=]'', even though it's been ten years since the Fifth Blight ended.
* PsychoSerum: If the Inquisitor becomes a Reaver, Cassandra will warn them that the path they have chosen is a dangerous one. Members of her family have also drunk dragon blood to become Reavers in the past, and they all eventually went mad because of it. They became addicted to the power and wanted more, which meant drinking more dragon blood. Eventually, they mutated physically as well (to the point of growing ''scales'').
* PsychoStrings: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUFDsMe1asA The Elder One's theme]].
* PurpleIsPowerful: The walls of purple fire that block off certain optional areas in the ''Trespasser'' DLC are more or less the only fires in the whole game to consistently deal damage. So much damage in fact that merely touching the stuff results in a OneHitKill regardless of fire resistance.
* PuttingTheBandBackTogether:
** You are tasked with reuniting the factions of the ancient order that helped end the previous magic wars.
** "Trespasser" takes place two years after the main game ends, and all your companions can rejoin you [[spoiler:save for Solas, who you confront at the end.]]
* AQuestGiverIsYou: As the Inquisitor, you can send rank-and-file agents of your organization on missions (presumably, the same agents and similar missions as seen in the CoopMultiplayer). This is in addition to PlayerParty members who also work for the Inquisition but instead fight alongside the Inquisitor in normal gameplay. Additionally, by speaking with Krem inside the Herald's Rest tavern and selecting the "How can we use you?" dialogue option, you can open up new missions on the war council table which the Bull's Chargers will undertake on your behalf. There's also the Sutherland quest chain, where your choices can enable a young farmhand to create his own adventuring company.
* QuicksandBox: The game is more open than previous Creator/BioWare titles which plays on the expectations of players familiar with [=BioWare=]'s standard game design. This results in players spending far too long in the first open area, the Hinterlands. It also doesn't help that one of the missions, which looks like it should be the final one based on the initially established conflict, actually kicks off the story proper. You can easily put 30 to 40 hours in before this point. Several game journalism outlets eventually ran articles urging players to leave the Hinterlands.
* RainbowPimpGear: For some party members, some pieces of their wardrobe always remain the same, like Cassandra's trenchcoat-like garments. However nothing stops you from putting a metal head on top of a robe-wearing mage if the helm doesn't forbid mages from using it. Crafting materials also add color to the equipment made with them, with potentially vivid results. As of patch 5 this aesthetic is optional, however, since it introduced the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCKekNBd1U0 "tint armor" table]] which allows you to customize the look of your armor without affecting stats. Of course, this also allows you make ordinary looking armor clownish. [[LampshadedTrope Lampshaded]] by your craftswoman in Skyhold:
-->'''Dagna:''' So, I'm thinking... Pinkquisition?
* RareCandy: Amulets of Power give one Talent Point on use. Each amulet is restricted to one party member by whom it can be used.
* RealIsBrown: Averted for the first time in the series. Every area is rendered in full, vibrant colors with ''plenty'' of light. A good comparison is Redcliffe, which is so completely unrecognizable as a quaint mountain hamlet surrounded by flowering gardens, fields, and the shimmering water of Lake Calenhad that the player may actually forget this is the very same "brown town" they saved way back in ''Origins''.
* RealityEnsues:
** In the quest to restore the elven greatsword known as the Sulevin Blade, Dagna remarks that it's impossible to completely repair the sword using its pieces. In real life, it's usually more practical to make a new sword instead... which is exactly what she does, using the pieces of the old Sulevin Blade as an inspiration to make a new one. The result is an {{Infinity Plus One Sword}} which is arguably the best weapon in the game for a warrior Inquisitor.
** In "Here Lies the Abyss", it is mentioned that [[spoiler:Adamant Fortress]] is over a thousand years old and has never been taken. Cullen interprets "over a thousand years old" to mean "not defensible against a modern army" – and indeed, it turns out that a fortress holding for centuries against darkspawn hordes does ''not'' necessarily translate to being able to hold off modern siege equipment.
** If you complete "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts" by [[spoiler:forcing Celene, Gaspard, and Briala into a truce]], the game epilogue will mention that ''another'' CivilWar looms on the horizon despite the Inquisitor's efforts. Obviously, [[spoiler:forcing three experts of political scheming to work together using only blackmail does not contribute to a stable nation]].
** The Inquisition spends all of the base game expanding their influence and power across Ferelden and Orlais. This includes holding territory and building a powerful army and a widespread spy network. Of course, this is all ostensibly to counter [[spoiler:Corypheus']] machinations. [[spoiler:However, in the Trespasser DLC, officials from Orlais and Ferelden especially are not happy with a stateless paramilitary organization holding land and quartering soldiers in their territory without any real threat to justify it, and the DLC ends with the Inquisition either disbanding or dramatically scaling down its operations due to political pressure.]]
%%** Some of the liquors you find for the "Bottles of Thedas" collection take the idea of brewing ever-more-potent concoctions to its logical extreme; the [[CallBack Golden Scythe]] [[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins 4:90 Black]], for example, is described more like a deadly poison than an alcoholic beverage, with recommendations that it be served only "by the drop" and that contact with "exposed flesh" be avoided. [[RuleOfFunny How you're supposed to safely put something that's harmful to just your bare skin into your digestive tract is anyone's guess.]]
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
** The Inquisitor can really lay it into [[spoiler: Grand Duchess Florianne de Chalons if you opt for a bloodless end in the plot against Empress Celene's life.]]
** In a strange twist, a short and sweet one decrying that the Chantry preached hatred of mages towards Leliana actually ''boosts'' her chances of [[spoiler:becoming the next Divine]].
** At the end of ''Trespasser'', one of the dialogue options allows the Inquisitor to give a very bitter one to the Exalted Council before [[spoiler: announcing the end of the Inquisition]].
* RedHerring: [[spoiler:The Crossroads inside the Eluvians. Morrigan suspects that Corypheus intends to find an Eluvian and enter the Fade through the Crossroads, but it turns out that Corypheus's plan is something else entirely.]]
* {{Redshirt}}: If you forcibly stop Florianne de Chalons, Inquisition solders get killed by her and the Harlequin assassins proceed to show how dangerously quick they all are with knives.
* ReforgedBlade:
** The Sulevin Blade, as mentioned under RealityEnsues above.
** Certainty, [[spoiler:the red lyrium sword wielded by Meredith in ''Videogame/DragonAgeII'']]. [[spoiler:Corypheus]] used a combination of ancient Elven, Tevinter, and Blight magic to reforge it and gave it to [[spoiler:Samson]].
** More generally, you can find schematics for a wide variety of otherwise "unique" weapons and pieces of armor, including several swords. While not technically "reforging", this makes it possible to make several copies of a supposedly one-of-a-kind, legendary piece of weaponry.
* RelationshipValues: The approval/disapproval system returns; however, the approval bar is now invisible to the player. The player is not told how many points are added or removed from a companion's approval bar, only that a companion approved or disapproved of the player's actions, with vague descriptors like "slightly" or "greatly" added for particularly small or large changes. Slightly Approves and Slightly Disapproves:+/- 1 point. Approves and Disapproves:+/- 5 points. Greatly Approves and Greatly Disapproves:+/- 20 points. Without an actual gauge, the only consistent way of knowing where your relationship lies with a character is paying attention to how they greet you. Most characters will also gain new cutscenes when their approval has risen or fallen to a certain threshold.
* RenegadeSplinterFaction:
** The Templars and Mages fighting in the Hinterlands are the lunatic fringe of both groups that refused to withdraw with their respective factions and randomly attack almost everyone. The main groups are more than happy to leave you to deal with them.
** The Inquisition is considered to be this by the Chantry, especially if the Inquisitor, a.k.a. the Herald of Andraste, is an Elf/Qunari/Dwarf, doubly so if they're also a mage. A male mage Vasoth is, more or less, the Chantry's bane.
** The Venatori are a breakaway group of Tevinter extremists, they have no official backing from the government.
** You can find a letter in the ''Trespasser'' DLC where the Qunari leadership claim the group you're fighting is actually a group of loyalists fooled into following a priestess they don't know has gone rogue. It's left ambiguous if this is the truth or not, since her plan had already been foiled by then.
* RepeatAfterMe:
** If Alistair claims his royal birthright in the first game and you recruited the Mages in this one, King Alistair petitions the Inquisition to help with a Venatori infiltration problem in his court (after apologizing for his curtness when kicking the mages out of Redcliffe). The scribe apparently is pretty much writing what he says verbatim... including Al yelling at the scribe for doing it.
** If Cassandra becomes the Divine, ''Trespasser'' contains a letter from her to the Inquisitor in which she tries to make up for her [[{{Adorkable}} verbal awkwardness]] by giving a scribe loose instructions for what to write about. The scribe just wrote down what she said word for word instead.
** If Chief Movran is assigned to work with Lord Abernache, Movran makes Abernache write everything he says verbatim and read it back to him. Including his laughter.
* ResetButtonSuicideMission: In the main quest "In Hushed Whispers", the Inquisitor and Dorian are propelled into a BadFuture where the BigBad has won. The other two party members who accompanied them and Leliana then sacrifice themselves to return the Inquisitor and Dorian back to the present, preventing this future from ever occurring.
* TheReveal: Two major ones occur near the end of the game and as TheStinger respectively. First, [[spoiler: Flemeth is revealed to be carrying the soul of Mythal, an ''Elven god''. This also gives her control over whoever drank from the Well of Sorrows earlier.]] TheStinger, as detailed under SequelHook, reveals that [[spoiler: Solas is himself an Elven god: Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf. Moreover, ''he'' was the one who gave Corypheus the orb in the first place.]]
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The Freemen claim to be fighting for the common folk of Orlais, but are little more than a large bandit group in service to the Elder One.
* RocketPunch: For the first time in the series, the Stonefist spell is actually a fist-shaped stone projectile. It's not any character's hand, though, but a formation of fade stones (as it's part of the Rift Mage spec tree).
* RomanceSidequest: Eight romance options are available; unlike in ''Dragon Age II'', however, no single Inquisitor can romance them all. From the beginning, Cassandra and Blackwall are straight, Josephine is bisexual, Iron Bull is pansexual, Sera and Dorian are gay, and all six are available regardless of race. When the developers got extra time, Cullen was made a romance option for female humans and elves, and Solas was made available to female elves. Incidentally, actual sidequests are involved in some of the romances.
* RuleOfThree: Threes are all over this game, which is the third core installment of the series. For starters, there are three advisors at the War Table, representing three aspects of the Inquisition's power (CombatDiplomacyStealth), and one Keep for each advisor to oversee. Each of the three {{character class}}es is represented by three companions and contains three specializations. The CharacterLevel is {{cap}}ped at 27, which is three to the power of three. The narration follows an implicit ThreeActStructure, with each act spanning three main quests. Three power players vie for dominance in the Winter Palace, and three candidates (who accidentally comprise a complete FighterMageThief triad) compete for the Sunburst Throne in the endgame. Lastly, three major DLC expansions have been released: a sandbox, a dungeon crawl, and a story epilogue--mirroring all three of the contemporary WesternRPG subgenres.
* RunningGag:
** Varric's [[CarpetOfVirility chest hair]].
** Goats. No, seriously. In ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins Origins]]'', there were goats caged and bleating in several places [[note]] like Denerim's market or the dragon caves in the Temple of Sacred Ashes [[/note]]. In ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeII DAII]]'', there was Ser Conrad [[note]] who "sacrifices a goat to the Great Demon" [[/note]], Aveline [[note]] "three goats and a sheaf of wheat" [[/note]] and Isabela [[note]] who [[NoodleIncident "didn't ask for the goat"]] [[/note]]. The tradition continues with Chief Movran the Under, who attacks Skyhold with a goat....
** As in previous games, the visual gag of cheese wheels in odd places... such as stuck on the fangs of a demonic statue, or made into a shield that the player can equip, or turned into a miniature cheese mine complete with little toiling figures, or being used as a table.
** The Inquisition's female leaders telling Cullen to just stand around and look pretty. Varric claims it's the only reason they recruited him. They also comment on how he styles his hair.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: S - Z]]
* SadisticChoice:
** Complete "In Hushed Whispers" to side with the Mages or "Champions of the Just" for the Templars? [[spoiler: Whoever you don't choose goes to The Elder One!]]
** During Iron Bull's personal mission on the Storm Coast, the Inquisitor has to decide [[spoiler: between two options. On the one hand, you can save the Dreadnought carrying Qunari soldiers, solidifying an alliance with the Qunari and Iron Bull's place within it at the cost of his mercenary group's lives. Or they could sound the retreat for the mercenaries, scuttle the alliance, get Iron Bull [[YouCantGoHomeAgain branded as Tal-Vashoth]], and allow the Dreadnought to be blown apart by Tevinter forces.]] And you cannot TakeAThirdOption.
** During "Here Lies the Abyss", [[spoiler: you have to give either a major Grey Warden character - Stroud/Alistair/Loghain - or Hawke a LastStand. The Warden feels guilty on behalf of their Order's actions, Hawke for not finishing Corypheus.]]
** There's another example that only applies if you imported a save from the Keep in which [[spoiler:Sebastian was recruited but Anders was kept alive instead of executed. During a War Table mission, Sebastian gathers his forces in Starkhaven and launches an invasion of Kirkwall to annex it (off-screen, you learn this in the summary of the mission). You're given a choice between either sending Leliana's forces to help Sebastian's forces annex Kirkwall, or sending Cullen's forces to help Guard-Captain Aveline repel the invasion. The sadistic choice is between either supporting Aveline or supporting Sebastian, both of whom were companions in the previous game, though that depends on how one feels about Sebastian.]] Luckily you can TakeAThirdOption to [[spoiler:nominally support Sebastian while actually keeping tabs on and stalling the conflict.]]
** Being forced to decide [[spoiler:who will be bound to Mythal forever by drinking from the Well of Sorrows]] is one, assuming you happen to be a fan of [[spoiler:Morrigan]]. This one is borderline, since the full implications don't become clear until later and it actually feels like a power struggle at the time.
* SamusIsAGirl: ''Jaws of Hakkon'' reveals that the Old God Razikale is female.
* SceneryCensor: Should you open Celene's private quarters in the Winter Palace and find [[spoiler: a Chevalier she [[FemmeFatale tricked]] into betraying Gaspard's plan to her before [[ChainedToABed trussing him up naked to the bedposts]], parts of the bed frame conveniently covers up his loins.]]
* SceneryGorn: While the game is very pretty, there's a lot of wreckage and ruin present in the maps, which is appropriate considering the events of the game. Notable examples include the war-torn desolation of the Exalted Plains, [[spoiler:Redcliffe Castle during the BadFuture sequence]] in the mage recruitment questline, and the obligatory appearance of the Deep Roads in ''The Descent'' DLC.
* SceneryPorn:
** Creator/BioWare heard fan complaints about the ''Dragon Age II'' maps being small, repetitive, and limited - and answered with giant maps full of lush scenery. This is one of the near universally praised features of the game, shown off in their ''What a Wonderful World'' trailer. A couple of vantage points include invisible walls to keep you from jumping and sliding down a hill before you've had a chance to drink in the view.
** The last two levels of ''The Descent'' DLC (the Bastion of the Pure and the Wellspring, or [[spoiler:the inside of the Titan]]) are exceptional examples. The effect is more startling by contrast with the (still impressive) SceneryGorn of the Deep Roads in which the first part of the DLC takes place.
* SchmuckBait: In the Fade, you come across a journal entry from a rebel mage who hated and feared the Templars when he was back at the Circle, and how he wanted to make the Templars suffer. Naturally, you are going to read it because it might be a journal entry, and because one of your companions may call attention to it. Once you're done, a rage demon comes forth, a reflection of the rebel mage's last thoughts at the ill-fated Conclave.
** In ''Jaws of Hakkon,'' while exploring the island called The Lady's Rest, the player can find a cave filled with piles of gold, a dead body seated on a throne, and a codex entry. The codex, which is a poem detailing how the gold was obtained through a series of murders and deadly accidents, is the only thing which is safe to touch; interacting with any of the treasure causes five ''level 30'' demons to spawn. They ''can'' be defeated, if the party is of a high enough level themselves, but it will be a difficult fight.
* SchrodingersGun: Schematics for elemental runes (Fire, Frost, etc.) are found as ancient glyphs on the walls in various locations, only readable using Veilfire. Each element has 3 levels of runes: normal (no prefix), Master and Superb, and therefore may be found in 3 different locations. However, you cannot find the higher-level runes before you have found the lower-level ones. In a normal playthrough, you are supposed to find the Fire Rune in the Hinterlands (the lowest-level area), the Master Fire Rune in the Western Approach (a middle-level area) and the Superb Fire Rune in the Hissing Wastes (the highest-level area). Yet if you choose to ignore the glyphs in the lower-level areas, you may change or even reverse the order (i.e. the content of the ancient glyphs in all locations is in fact decided by the order in which you choose to read them).
* SchrodingersPlayerCharacter: Played with. All potential player characters (or at least one of each race) are present at the Conclave. The Inquisitor is whichever one [[spoiler:interrupted Corypheus' ritual]]. However, the weapon you conveniently land beside during the prologue will always match whatever class you chose in player selection.
* ScrewYouElves: You get to give the Qun a big one. [[spoiler: Though you sink an alliance with it, because they want you to sacrifice Bull's Chargers.]]
* SealedEvilInACan:
** [[spoiler:The Solasan Temple is actually a prison for a powerful pride demon. Doubles as a bit of BilingualBonus for those who know that ''solas'' is the Elvhen word for ''pride''.]]
** ''Trespasser'' reveals that [[spoiler: the Evanuris, the tyrannical god-mages of the ancient Elvhen are the evil sealed deep in the Fade by Fen'Harel's creation of the Veil as punishment for their murder of Mythal.]]
* SecretTestOfCharacter: Although the scene near the game's end sets itself up as a SadisticChoice for the player to make (similar to Iron Bull's earlier), [[spoiler: [[http://youtu.be/dcJcH1rmTkk?t=7m19s Morrigan answers in a heartbeat]] that she's willing to lay her life on the line in exchange for the safety of her son from Flemeth]]. It also gets lampshaded immediately after, with the character that was tested being unsure whether they'd passed or failed it.
* SequelEscalation: The Inquisition will be building up forces like in ''Origins'', but with Orlais thrown into the mix. Some of the Skyhold mechanics also feel familiar to ''Awakening'', such as passing judgement on various people.
* SequelHook: Bioware has made it ''abundantly'' clear that the ''Dragon Age'' story is far from over. WordOfGod on social media indicates that even ''they'' aren't sure how long it's going to take them to tell it.
** [[spoiler: Corypheus and his pseudo-Archdemon both die in the final battle, but [[TheStinger after the endgame and the credits]], Solas is revealed to be Fen'Harel and working with Flemeth (or rather Mythal) for an unknown goal, with Flemeth possibly possessing his body at the end for her own purposes... or Solas/Fen'harel absorbing Flemeth's powers for ''his'' own purposes.]] [[AmbiguousEnding It's left kinda vague.]] WordOfGod datamined from the game and posted on Reddit reveals that [[spoiler:Fen'Harel did indeed kill Mythal and absorb her power. Mythal, true to form, anticipated this and left some of her own power in the Eluvian for Morrigan to eventually find]]. The ''incredibly spoilery'' post including this information can be found [[http://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/2qa4cc/major_spoilers_post_credit_scene_explained/ here.]]
** The ending narration mentions the main Warden fortress suddenly becoming ominously silent and [[spoiler: Hawke/Alistair/Loghain/Stroud]], who took them a message about what happened to their people in the south, disappearing. There is also a suggestion that the Wardens who have disconnected themselves from Weisshaupt have a great deal of work to do to redeem themselves, which may factor into the next game.
** The Hero of Ferelden, if still alive, is on a quest far in the uncharted West to cure all Wardens of the Calling. [[spoiler:A romanced Morrigan or Leliana states her intention to rejoin them when the current crisis is done, opening up possibilities for their story to continue. If the Warden is Alistair's queen, Ferelden is facing a potential SuccessionCrisis as they have not yet had children, and one codex entry suggests that Alistair is feeling the strain of his beloved wife's absence, which may indicate future difficulties for the beleaguered nation.]]
** The Elder One describes Qunari blood as "strange" and "engorged with decay". You could write this off as racism, except that [[spoiler: Old God Kieran]] likewise tells Adaar that their blood "doesn't belong to your people."
** Indeed, much of what [[spoiler:Old God Kieran]] says implies things as yet unrevealed:
--->''(regarding Morrigan):'' Mother is the inheritor, she who awaits the next age.\\
''(To Lavellan)'' Your blood is very old. I saw it right away./I just don't understand why your people choose to look like that.\\
''(To Adaar)'' I just feel bad about what happened to your people./I noticed your blood. It doesn't belong to your people.\\
''(To Cadash)'' You can't be taller. Not without the titans.
** There are hints that an uncorrupted Old God is buried under the Western Approach, and a statue depicting worshipers of Razikale is found in the area. Combined with the information given on Razikale in ''Jaws of Hakkon'', it's possible that focus is being shifted to her now that Urthemiel has been defeated.
** ''The Descent'' ends with some major revelations about dwarven lore, but leaves a lot of mysteries still open.
** ''Trespasser'' ends with the reveal that [[spoiler: Solas intends to destroy Thedas to create a new world for the elves. The Inquisition (or whatever's left of it) now moves to stop him. It's all but confirmed that the next game will focus on the Tevinter Imperium, which has just entered a great deal of political upheaval and a new war with the Qunari.]]
* ShieldBearingMook: In the same vein as the Cerberus Guardians in [=ME3=]. This emphasizes party teamwork - you can't punch through the shields even with magic (unless it knocks them down), so you need to flank or disarm them.
* ShipperOnDeck:
** If you romance Josephine and ask if the relationship has started any rumors, she'll reply that a number of people had already paired the Inquisitor off with several other characters, including but not limited to: Cassandra, Dorian, Chancellor Roderick (who's dead by this point) and some man (who may or may not even exist) named "Philip".
** Dorian is clearly this for Cullen and a female Inquisitor.
* ShoddyKnockoffProduct: InUniverse; WordOfGod [[https://twitter.com/BioMaryKirby/status/344304535096946688 says]] that ''Hard in Hightown 2'', the book next to Cassandra's maps, is an unauthorized sequel to Varric's original. The book had previously appeared in Varric's companion specific sidequest in ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeII Mark of the Assassin]]'', where he was furious to discover someone ripping off his work, leading him to collect all the copies he could find at Chateau Haine so he could burn them. There's now a third, which drives Varric to hunt down the plagiarist. Both rip-offs are by all reports crimes against literature and correct spelling.
* ShootHimHeHasAWallet: The truth about [[spoiler:Red Crossing]] turns out to be a case of "Shoot her, she has a [[spoiler:letter]]!"
* ShootTheMedicFirst: A load screen tip details how enemy spellbinders may buff their nearby allies, and that they should be priority targets.
* ShootTheShaggyDog: Maddox's tragic end. [[spoiler:He commits suicide by poison to ensure his secrets about Samson's armor go with him to his grave... but [[GadgeteerGenius Dagna]] reverse-engineers his tools anyway and makes a rune to unmake Samson's armor.]]
* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/DragonAgeInquisition Has its own page.]]
* ShutUpHannibal: As Erimond does his villainous monologue about how he [[spoiler:exploited the Warden's fear of Corypheus's false Calling]] and gloats how he has countermeasures against the Inquisitor's Anchor, the Inquisitor causes the fade rift in between them to discharge, knocking Erimond flat on his butt.
* SideBet: Varric and Dorian have ''several'' side bets going, mostly about exactly how much trouble they're in and the Inquisitor's odds of success against the Elder One, which Dorian estimates at about three to one... in favor of the Elder One, though he notes that it would be five to one if he weren't around. The Inquisitor has the option of joining in on the bet.
* SigilSpam: When they're not wearing BlingOfWar, every Orlesian soldier wears a cuirass with the golden lion on purple of House Valmont on it. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation This includes soldiers, like Corporal Rosslin, who serve Gaspard.]]
* SleepingWithTheBoss: You're the boss of the Inquisition, and all possible {{Romance Sidequest}}s are with your underlings.
* SmallNameBigEgo: The nobleman you encounter in Sera's recruitment quest acts like he's the arch-nemesis of the Inquisition, and assumes that you had to spend a massive amount of resources to track him down. In reality, the Inquisitor will have never heard of him prior to the quest, came to Val Royeaux on a completely unrelated matter, and unexpectedly ran into him after following a seemingly random series of clues laid by the Friends of Red Jenny. Sera also has no idea who he is, and his identity is never revealed.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: The characters who can display an interest in chess are Cullen (military advisor), Leliana (spymaster), Solas (Fade expert), Iron Bull (Ben-Hassrath spy), and Dorian (highly educated Tevinter mage). [[PlayerCharacter The Inquisitor]] can also play, so this can be played straight or subverted depending on the player's choices.
* SoBadItsGood: In-universe. Varric takes this mentality when agreeing to finish a [[OldShame rather bad romance serial]] that Cassandra [[NotSoAboveItAll secretly reads]]. "That's such a terrible idea, I have to do it."
* SoLongAndThanksForAllTheGear: At the end of the game [[spoiler:Solas]] will permanently leave the party with all the gear you had equipped on him. Ditto [[spoiler:Cassandra and Vivienne if one of them gets elected the Divine (Cassandra can be recruited back to the ranks after the ending if you talk to her - she'll even beg you for it)]], but at least you can unequip their gear during the post-FinalBattle celebration. [[spoiler:Blackwall]] temporarily leaves the party after the Winter Palace, taking all of his equipped gear with him, too; however, if you bring him back, he brings it all back with him.
* SoNearYetSoFar: Subverted. The Breach, closing which is set up as your main objective for the game in its opening sequence, is a short walk away from Haven, where you set up your Player Headquarters. In fact, you can see the Breach from pretty much anywhere in the village, but you have to secure an alliance with either the mages or the Templars before you can actually seal it for good. The subversion comes from the fact that despite being set up as the ultimate goal, closing the Breach turns out to be just the start of a much larger, game-spanning conflict.
* SongOfCourage: Mother Giselle rallies the Inquisition when it's teetering on the DespairEventHorizon by singing the Chantry hymn "The Dawn Will Come" to emphasize [[PlayerCharacter the Herald]] [[MessianicArchetype of Andraste]].
* SoreLoser: The Elder One gets described as this by Solas near the end of the game, after the Inquisitor has thwarted their plans time and again. Of course, the temper tantrum ''this'' upset child will throw [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt could be world-breaking]].
* SoWhatDoWeDoNow:
** The ending leaves the Inquisitor (and whichever companions don't have anywhere else to be) left in charge of one of the most powerful military and political organizations in southern Thedas, allied with both the major kingdoms and the Chantry, and absolutely no clear objectives remaining. The characters discuss it during the finale, but don't come to any conclusions.
** ''Trespasser'' takes it a bit further; the clean-up operation is finally over and the kingdoms want to resolve your exact status, not being comfortable with what is essentially a massive stateless private army on their borders. [[spoiler: You can disband the Inquisition if you want, or pledge it to the service of the Divine. Either way, everyone is aware that they may be called on again to fight the new threat.]]
* SpamAttack: [[BladeSpam Rampage]] for the [[LightningBruiser Reaver]], [[DeathOfAThousandCuts Thousand Cuts]] for the [[FragileSpeedster Tempest]], [[RainOfArrows Hail of Arrows]] for the [[TrapMaster Artificer]] and [[MagicMissileStorm Firestorm]] for the [[PlayingWithFire Rift Mage]]. Because one hit is [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill never enough]]. On a lesser level, the more generally available "Energy Barrage" spell for mages shoots out a larger number of standard mage staff projectiles than standard staff attacks (even a sustained combo) can normally do.
* SpiderSwarm:
** As if to prove Bioware's love for them once and for all they crop up every now and then, relevantly in The Fade or Storm Coast. They are very active in The Hissing Wastes with one quest even has you fighting a particularly large group, and [[OhCrap should you fail one of the tomb's riddles...]]
** One quest titled ''For What It's Worth'' has you retrieve a wedding ring. A lot of sentimental value but fighting some forty corrupted spiders for the ring may not be worth it[[note]]This is actually a bug that happens when you enter the location under-leveled, but even the intended number can overwhelm an ill-prepared party[[/note]].
* SpidersAreScary: One of the tarot card loading screens discuss how a GiantSpider is better than the little ones because at least you know where they are, hinting that the game will take this direction. Sure enough they are the first enemy encountered, then there are [[FromBadToWorse poisonous versions]], and the BigBad uses the image of demons in the image of spiders... the Inquisitor turns out to be deathly afraid of them. Becomes a DiscussedTrope later in the game.
-->The big demon Erimond was trying to bring through? It's nearby? Well, shit.
* SpinAttack: [[GiantMook Avvar Brutes and Champions]] have a devastating one that inflicts knockdown with every hit, and these hits are timed perfectly to knock down anyone who had just recovered from the previous blow. The attack has a long and quite distinctive wind-up animation, but if you fail to read the signs or get out in time, the resulting CycleOfHurting is usually a death sentence even on the lowest difficulty.
* SpyFiction: Almost always averted, contrary to the Inquisition being an intelligence agency. Presumably Leliana and her people are off having cloak and dagger [[HeroOfAnotherStory adventures of their own]]. (This presumption is somewhat supported by ambient dialogue from the various spies.)
* SpyVersusSpy: A minor subversion; [[spoiler: Solas found out about the Qunari plot in the ''Trespasser'' DLC because his spies infiltrating the Inquisition randomly tripped over the Qunari spies infiltrating the Inquisition.]]
* StaticRoleExchangeableCharacter:
** "Grey Warden Ally": Depending on the [[OldSaveBonus world state]], this can be either Alistair, [[spoiler:Loghain]], or Stroud from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII,'' but whoever it is plays a major static role in the "Here Lies The Abyss" plotline. At the end of said mission, [[spoiler:either he or Hawke becomes "the Fade Survivor", whose role is to play out in the future games]].
** "[[spoiler:Mythal's Thrall]]": Towards the endgame, either the Inquisitor, or Morrigan drinks from the Well of Sorrows, allowing them to neutralize the Elder One's dragon in the FinalBattle, but also [[spoiler:making them a thrall to Mythal]].
* StealthyMook: Enemy rogues can use the Stealth skill to disappear from view at the start of combat and circle around your frontline fighters to BackStab your mages and archers. While they [[VisibleInvisibility can, with some skill, be spotted]] and forced out of stealth with a manual unaimed attack, they cannot be targeted by spells, abilities, and party AI while sneaking.
* TheStinger: You get a party after saving the world, go up to your room with your love interest, then a rolling screen details what happens after. [[spoiler: Then Solas meets with Flemeth expecting a YouHaveFailedMe, and instead, when she embraces him his power seemingly kills her.]]
** ''Trespasser'' can end with either the Inquisition working for the Divine or being disbanded. Again you get details based on your actions through the game, then Varric gives Cassandra his new book, which she reads aloud imitating the other characters and critiquing the writing. Then the leaders, which now include Harding, [[spoiler: plot to either save Solas from himself or hunt him down.]]
* StockPuzzle: ''The Descent'' DLC sees Towers of Hanoi make a [[SarcasmMode triumphant]] return. And [=BioWare=] seems well aware of its reputation.
-->'''Inquisitor:''' Only a lyrium-addled mind would hide secrets behind such madness.
* StockScream: Good ol' Wilhelm shows up during the siege on Adamant Fortress.
* StockVideoGamePuzzle: Eulerian paths for Astrariums (tracing constellations with each line drawn only once) and Hamiltonian paths for Temple of Mythal rituals (stepping on each floor tile only once).
* StopBeingStereotypical: Just about every single party member falls into this, whether it be about their race, subgroup, or country.
** When fighting demons, Cole will often try to get them to wake up and stop hurting people, because he's learned better.
** Dorian's motivation for joining the Inquisition is that he is fed up with the "cliche villainy" stereotype that his fellow Tevinter nobles are all to eager to indulge in, and the Inquisition's prime enemy faction just happens to be comprised of the most egregious examples of such.
** Cassandra hates what the Seekers and Templars have become and wants to get them to see that justice and doing what's right supersedes customs or tradition.
** Iron Bull questions a lot about the Qun and sometimes can't find a reason to go on. [[spoiler:Possibly subverted based on your actions.]]
** Sera can't stand elves who are caught up in past glory or whine about oppression. She's just fine, so leave her out of it.
** Solas likewise has issue with both Dalish elves and City elves, as well as their customs, beliefs and traditions. He feels at home with neither. [[spoiler:Justified because he's an Elven god, and remembers the way things were.]]
** Varric isn't overly fond of Dwarven things or culture. In particular, he's happy to hear that there was once a Dwarven surface colony.
** Vivienne is not happy that the Mages rebelled against the Chantry and dissolved the circles, starting a war in which they are outnumbered "a hundred to one."
** Blackwall is the only party character who has no problems with his origins, completely believing in the Grey Warden Order no matter what. [[spoiler:Except he's ''not'' a Warden, and so has no idea what the Order is about or what its purpose is. He believes, for example, that Wardens swear to protect others; in reality, Wardens do whatever they want as long as they can justify it as a means to fight present or future Blights.]]
* StoppedNumberingSequels: Originally announced as ''Dragon Age III: Inquisition'', the ''III'' was eventually dropped from the title, due to the transition to next generation consoles. Plus, ''DAIIII'' as the abbreviation probably would have been awkward. Ironically, this is actually a return to the original naming scheme of the ''Dragon Age'' series, meaning ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' is the ''only'' numbered game in the series.
* StoryBranchFavoritism:
** How many Inquisition Perks you invest into Forces, Secrets, and Connections determines the modus operandi of the Inquisition, including in the ending. Since there are about as many perks available in Forces as in the other two categories combined, and since a lot of them improve your combat performance, you are much more likely to end up with a military powerhouse in your hands than with an organization of spies or diplomats. (However, the game takes into account other factors, such as which advisors you usually pick for war table missions.)
** There is more unique content for the Dalish Inquisitor than for all the other races combined, although a great deal of the dialogue is negative about the Dalish. Solas in particular is much more forthcoming, especially if the romance with him is taken.
* StoryDifficultySetting: The easiest mode is called Casual: "For players new to role-playing games or those interested in a purely narrative focus." That still doesn't mean you can just stroll through battles without a care in the world -- most enemies will still wreck even well-equipped hero parties in short order unless you out-level them by a significant margin.
* {{Stripperific}}: Some of the DLC-exclusive Qunari and Avvar armors are more revealing than any other set of clothes in the entire franchise except for the infamous underwear, especially when worn by female characters. Qunari rarely wear more than a strip or two of cloth across their chest, which is just enough to cover a female character's breasts while [[BareYourMidriff showing off her impeccable abs]]. Avvar gear takes it even further by consisting of nothing but a thick layer of war paint for anything above the waist (which, for some unexplained reason, offers more protection than a full suit of heavy tier 1 armor).
* StripPoker: A famous cutscene (triggered by talking to Varric with high enough approval) features the Inquisitor, companions and advisors playing a game of Wicked Grace. While they are not actually playing a "strip" version of the game, the scene ends with Cullen losing his clothes in a bet with Josephine, which initiates remarks from some of the other characters.
** Happened when Blackwall taught Diamondback to Solas, too, apparently.
---> '''Blackwall:''' Lost everything! Had to walk back to my quarters with only a bucket for my bits.
* StuffBlowingUp: According to party banter with Varric and Solas, humans like to blow stuff up and generally make a mess of things. The remnants of the Conclave [[DeathFromAbove where the Breach opened]] also resembles a [[FantasticNuke nuclear strike]], complete with the carbonised remains of people trying to shield themselves from the blast dotting the area.
* SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome: A lot of returning characters, either from the previous games or from the tie-in novels, can bite it in this game.
** Returning characters who can potentially die: [[spoiler: Fiona, Empress Celene, Briala, Grand Duke Gaspard, Grand Duchess Florianne, Carroll, Imshael, Michel de Chevin, Stroud, Alistair, Loghain, and Hawke]].
** Returning characters who ''will'' die no matter what: [[spoiler:Galyan, Justinia V, and Flemeth (''a'' Flemeth, at least (possibly))]].
* SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: This outlook is starting to rise within Thedas, but the trope is still [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zagged]]. Similar to RealLife, most "accredited" academia and research in this era of Thedas are beginning with "Deist" intent. To most, academics exist solely to explain, prove, and better define religious "truth" (for example, studying Elven magic to prove they are inferior to the Maker). Morrigan, most of all, does not seem to believe in ''any'' gods and feels they were likely little more than extraordinarily powerful rulers or mages. [[spoiler:Later revelations, however, leave her in doubt. The events of ''Trespasser'' prove her completely right, at least as far as the Elven ones are concerned, but she'd left the organization years ago by that point.]]
* SuperDrowningSkills: Any standing water that goes above the chest forces the Inquisitor and the party to a safer area a few steps back.
* SuperPersistentPredator: The canine/lupine enemies in an area, when you're on horseback. You could be at a full tilt gallop across half the map, and they just keep relentlessly pursuing you.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: The Knight-Enchanter PrestigeClass drew many comparisons from fans as being the substitute for the [[MagicKnight Arcane Warriors]] from ''Origins''. Solas actually confirms in game that the Circle based the Knight-Enchanter magic on the Arcane Warrior.
* SwampsAreEvil: Ferelden gets a ''third'' evil swamp: the Fallow Mire was ravaged by a plague, and the plague's victims have risen as undead.
* TakingYouWithMe: Cullen's proposal once the [[spoiler: battle at Haven turns against the Inquisition: turn the trebuchets on the mountain above the village and bury Corypheus and his army along with everyone there. Fortunately, Roderick has a way to get everyone out while the Inquisitor holds the enemy's attention.]]
* TarotMotifs: The party member selection screen consists of a deck of tarot cards modelled on the party members. Each party member's card is based off of one of the major arcana. The LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition includes an actual tarot deck as one of its contents, which will presumably use the same imagery and expand on it for the cards not already represented by the party members.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Some members of the party do not get along, no matter what:
** Dorian and Blackwall dislike each other since Dorian believes [[spoiler:mostly correctly]] that Blackwall's a criminal who escaped justice by becoming a Grey Warden, while Blackwall dislikes Dorian because he's a Tevinter noble.
** Solas really doesn't like Vivienne because she's a prideful pro-Circle mage, and she in turn looks down on him for being a raggedy apostate.
** If Solas is in the party during "What Pride Had Wrought", he really tears into Morrigan for trying to act like an authority on Elven history when all she really knows are legends. [[spoiler:He's also possibly using reverse psychology to trick her into drinking from the Well of Sorrows, thus enslaving her to Mythal aka Flemeth.]]
** Sera doesn't get along well with either Solas (because of their completely opposite views on elven history/culture) or Vivienne (whom she sees as a stuck up noble). Both of them are also mages, and she is fairly uncomfortable with magic in general.
* {{Telefrag}}: The Knight Enchanter specialisation gets this ability. The [[FlashStep Fade Step]] spell can also be upgraded to inflict cold damage and chill effects to any foes you pass through on the dash.
* TeleportSpam: The default response of enemy mages when they're engaged in melee. Your own mages can get in on the action with the Fade Step ability, and the assassin ability Hidden Blades utilizes SuperSpeed to such an extreme extent that it gives off this impression (your rogue can be literally cutting up two enemies at once, one with his normal attacks while after-images of him are seen striking another enemy from all sides up to 6 times).
* ThatsNoMoon: Late ''The Descent'', [[spoiler:the party realizes that the cave system they are in is actually part of a Titan.]]
* ThemeNaming: Many of Leliana's personnel have codenames of various occupations and trades, like "Saddler" or "Cooper" or "Weaver". Varric lampshades it in one of the two branched final war table missions concerning the ''Hard in Hightown'' knockoffs.
* ThemeTuneCameo: The theme tune from the first Dragon Age game comes back as a tune that the minstrel in the Herald's Rest might play on the lute. The title music also is in-universe as the melody for the Chantry hymn "The Dawn Will Come".
* TheyFightCrime:
-->'''Iron Bull:''' Blackwall. Iron Bull. We could fight crime!\\
'''Blackwall:''' ...Isn't that exactly what we're doing, right this minute, more or less?\\
'''Iron Bull:''' ...Oh, yeah.
* ThreeActStructure: While ''Inquisition'' is not as overt about this as ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', its story neatly breaks down into three distinct segments: Haven and Ferelden (from the Breach to [[spoiler:the sack of Haven]]), Skyhold and Orlais ([[spoiler:the Grey Wardens and the Grand Game storylines]]), and the FinalBattle(s) against the Elder One (basically, everything from [[spoiler:the Arbor Wilds]] to the epilogue). It helps that three is the ArcNumber of the game, too.
* TimeSkip: "Trespasser" takes place two years after ''Inquisition'''s main quest line.
* TimeStandsStill: In the Western Approach there is a temple that the Venatori are very interested in. Inside, everything is frozen; the Venatori, the demons killing them, and the parts of the building that are collapsing (though anyone entering from the outside can move around just fine). It turns out they were experimenting with time magic which predictably went [[GoneHorriblyWrong horribly wrong]]; fortunately, one Venatori [[EvenEvilHasStandards who had doubts]] about the safety of the ritual [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificed his life]] to keep the effects restricted to just the temple and not the entirety of Southern Thedas. You can remove the staff keeping the spell going, at which point large parts of the temple collapse, the demons kill the Venatori, and you have to fight your way back out.
* ToAbsentFriends: Varric and the Inquisitor will take time to mourn [[spoiler:whoever was left in the Fade. The tone is quite different depending on who it was. If it was a Warden, Varric will be saddened by their death, even though he didn't know them very well. However, if it was Hawke, Varric is on the verge of tears for pretty much the entire conversation, telling an amusing story about him/her to the Inquisitor as a way of essentially saying goodbye to his best friend.]]
* TooAwesomeToUse: Focus abilities are extremely powerful but can only be recharged by dealing damage to enemies, and fully recharging all three bars takes so ridiculously long you'll soon learn to deploy them only against the toughest bosses[[note]]For reference, depopulating an entire map ''may'' suffice for a full charge, provided the map is large enough[[/note]]. First-time players have it particularly hard because they usually don't know in advance when and where said worthy targets are scheduled to show up, and how many opportunities they'll have to recharge before the next major boss battle.
* ToxicPhlebotinum: Red lyrium returns, only this time the entire order of Templars has dug it up to use. True to form, it grants them immense power, at the cost of horrifying mutations and [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity mass deportation from the lands of rationality]]. And turning them to stone eventually.
* TragicMonster:
** According to a banter between Solas and Cole, most of the demons in the game were benevolent spirits who were transformed into demons from the trauma of being forced into the physical world by the rifts. [[spoiler:One of Solas' companion quests deals with this happening to a spirit who was friends with him.]]
** The Red Templars. Judging by some diaries in their Storm Coast base and those in Therinfal Redoubt, more than a few - especially the lower-level members - were decent people, completely unaware that their new lyrium supplies would warp them so horrifically and make them lose their minds.
* TrapMaster: The Artificer specialization for Rogues. The Sabotage skill tree also deals with traps to some degree.
-->'''Description:''' Intricate mechanisms are the core of the artificer's craft: deadly traps; distracting contraptions; marvels of engineering turned to deadly purpose. If an artificer is standing at the far end of a seemingly innocuous stretch of the battlefield, you should find another path.
* TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot:
** More noticeable in this game, as it takes place over the southern half of an entire continent. Despite having a technology level no greater than late-Medieval Earth, characters are capable of traveling as if they lived in the modern day. For example, pre-industrial travel was ''extremely imprecise'' to schedule, but characters that travel separately always seem to arrive right on time. In addition, characters are always offering to "meet" each other in a completely different region, city, or even ''country'' as if it was taking a trip across town, and there's rarely any indication of waiting long.
** You're first invited to watch the Bull Charger's "in action" by traveling from Haven to the Storm Coast, and you arrive just as they're finishing up the job in question.
** Twice during "Here Lies the Abyss", Hawke and the Warden Ally agree to "meet you" at different key locations. Both times, Hawke acts as if s/he just got there right before you did.
** Twice, Josephine meets you in Val Royeaux, or three times if romanced. Her romance arc plays this UpToEleven, as she interrupts [[spoiler:your duel with her fiancé]] right at the last minute.
** Subverted when Solas says he'll meet you back at Skyhold after his personal quest. The dialogue implies that he was gone for some time, with no indication of where he was or when he'd be back.
** Ambiguously played during Varric's personal quest, where you meet his contact in Valammar in the Hinterlands. She complains that you kept her waiting, but there's no real indication that it's been days or weeks. Possibly, but not likely.
** Scout Harding hangs around Skyhold all the time. However whenever you reach a new area, she's been there so long she's had time to scout out enemy movements.
* TrueLoveIsBoring: Several romances (especially carried over from previous stories) succumb to this.
** Played with between the Warden and Hawke, and all possible love interests for either. With the exception of Zevran, the best possible outcome for the Warden's romance is that they're still very much in love, but can't physically be together at the moment. (If Zevran was romanced, it's implied that they're still an active BattleCouple.)
** Cassandra, depending on your actions, [[spoiler:may be forced to leave a male Inquisitor after becoming Divine Victoria.]]
** Depending on your choices, [[spoiler:Hawke or Alistair]] can die, leaving their love interest to grieve.
** Galyan [[spoiler:dies at the Conclave]] in the beginning of the game; under certain circumstances, Cassandra will later explain who he was to her.
** Averted with Rhys and Evangeline, who are still together [[spoiler:but their fate is left indeterminate if you don't do a War Table operation to rescue them.]]
** [[spoiler:Solas breaks up with]] the Inquisitor at the end of their romance.
** Whether the Iron Bull plays this straight or subverts it depends on whether or not he was [[spoiler:encouraged to stay with the Qun. If he stayed, he admits that he does have feelings for the Inquisitor, but both are aware that he will eventually be called back to Seheron and, whether through re-education or gamek, he will be made to forget his feelings. If he was encouraged to defect, Bull and the Inquisitor settle into a happy and kinky relationship.]]
* {{Unicorn}}: The Deluxe Edition includes a "Bog Unicorn" mount, which is just [[BlackComedy an undead horse with a sword through its head]].
* {{Unishment}}:
** Andraste's Sacrifice is an amulet for Mage and Rogue classes that can give a fair boost to mana regeneration, cooldown times, and also generates [[BodyArmorAsHitpoints Guard]]... but at the cost of generating threat and drawing enemy attention. This is typically not something you want to have as a non-Warrior class not meant to take a pounding... unless you're a [[MagicKnight Knight]][[BarrierWarrior -Enchanter]], in which case you're probably tanking and want the attention anyway.
** One of the people the Inquisitor can pass judgment on at Skyhold is Movran the Under, an Avvar chieftain guilty of [[ItMakesSenseInContext catapulting goats at the Inquisition fortress]]. One possible sentence is to exile him and his clan to Tevinter with as many weapons as they can carry. Since Movran intended to attack Tevinter anyway, absolutely everyone in the South is very happy with this sentence; even more so once the tribe sets up shop in Tevinter and gives the Vints an unexpectedly major OhCrap moment [[TheDreaded simply by being there]].
* UnknownRival: Sera's recruitment mission involves a confrontation with an Orlesian noble mage who is convinced that he is your arch-nemesis and you must have paid a terrible price to track him down. You never even learn the idiot's name before Sera kills him, and he never comes up again.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Foiling Corypheus' plans at the Winter Palace ball during "Wicked Eyes And Wicked Hearts" involves having the Inquisitor [[ItMakesSenseInContext scale a flower lattice]] in the Guest Gardens, decked in formal wear and in plain sight of scores of Orlesian nobles and guards. Nobody bats an eyelash.
* UnwinnableByMistake: A common complaint regarding the various requisition sidequests, many of which demand you collect an amount of resources that can only ever be (rarely, in some cases) dropped by enemies who do not respawn (making it possible to kill all of them there are, and upon not finding enough drops, not have any more chances).
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: After a certain point, the codex entry for the Rite of Tranquility reveals that [[spoiler:an unnamed mage once attempted to join the Seekers of Truth. It is because of him that the Seekers discovered that Tranquility strips mages of their magic. Thus began their policy of using the Rite of Tranquility as a last resort on uncontrollable mages. That gradually grew into the Rite being used on mages who don't toe the party line, which further led to a small but growing number of mages being made Tranquil to be used as sex slaves for the Templars. These things combined are among the biggest complaints that led to the Mage Rebellion. And it all started because of one well-meaning mage who thought he'd found a way to avoid possession.]]
* UpperClassTwit:
** This is par for the course for much of Orlesian nobility. Vivienne's EstablishingCharacterMoment involves her brutally putting in his place one who insults the Inquisitor at one of her parties.
** Lord Abernache, the most prominent noble to accompany the Inquisition to Therinfal Redoubt, is impatient and gets upset unless the Inquisitor caters to his every whim. [[spoiler:If Abernache survives Therinfal, the Inquisitor can get revenge by forcing him to participate in a "cultural exchange" with barbarian chieftain Movran the Under, who proceeds to annoy Abernache to no end.]]
** Josephine's younger sister causes her no end of exasperation, though Lady Yvette is a more benign example of this trope.
* UselessUsefulSpell: Several of the Inquisition Perks end up as this in practice and execution.
** Massasche's Method increases the experience points gained from killing enemies by 5%. The gain is a pittance that won't make a reasonable difference in how fast the player gains experience points, compared to completing quests or killing High Dragons. The [=DLCs=] allow for the level cap to be reached comfortably as well.
** Rider's Posture (and its upgrade, Antivan-Stitched Saddle) increases the resistance to being unseated when riding a mount. You can just recall your mount a split second after being unseated for whatever reason. The majority of players also don't use the mounts very often, as doing so stores your party in HammerSpace and means you won't get to hear any banter.
** Optimal Cutting randomly gives the player extra herbs while harvesting them in the wild. Herbs can be re-harvested from the same area just be fast traveling to another map and returning to the previous one. You also have the option to grow your own herbs with seeds in the Skyhold Garden, which is even easier to do if you use the Golden Nug to give you every seed in the game.
** Eagle-Eyed increases the discovery range of the searched action. Not really needed when you can backtrack to find what you missed or go online for help.
** Enhanced Studies grants an additional 50% experience points for each foe research piece you turn in. Like with Massasche's Method, there is far more than enough experience points to reach a high level with regular questing. (That said, it's retroactive, meaning that on taking it you can get a major experience point boost. Turning in research also gives influence, though again, there are enough ways to maximize that that it's not necessary.)
** Forward Scouts reveals additional landmarks and points of interest on the maps of every area. Nothing you can't accomplish with a map online, and nothing you need for more than a couple of entirely-optional quests that affect Skyhold only cosmetically.
* VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: Strangely inverted. [[spoiler: There's no real gameplay buildup to the final battle against Corypheus. A short cutscene plays, and you're thrust into the fight.]] If anything, the Elven Temple in the Arbor Wilds is set up to be this, complete with a beautifully rendered montage of your allies gathering (reminiscent of the one for the endgame of ''Origins''). But then there is a break between that and the actual final battle.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: Of special note is the option to hug Varric if he begins to cry during one specific dark moment. Most if not all of the companions and advisors have at least one moment that really tugs at the heart in a similar manner, though perhaps none quite so powerfully as Varric. If you find food and blankets for the refugees, you may later discover small groups camping out in various places around the world, commenting to each other that at least they won't be cold and hungry because the Herald cared enough to help them.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential:
** The Inquisitor's judgments can display shades of this, particularly in the case of players with the human noble background who can confiscate all of [[spoiler: Mistress Poulin's]] earnings to enrich their own family's wealth.
** They can also sentence Movran the Under to gibbeting for [[DisproportionateRetribution throwing a goat at Skyhold]].
** Also of note, Sera can be abruptly dumped and fired from the Inquisition with a single dialogue choice long after the Inquisitor has started pursuing a romance with her.
* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: A quest available at the beginning of the game has you work with Mihris from ''Literature/TheMaskedEmpire''. At the end of the quest, you have the choice to kill Mihris over an Amulet of Power. Fighting her is pointless, as Solas (whose presence is required for the quest) can convince her to turn it over without a fight. If you choose to fight her anyway, you learn that she's an endgame level opponent who will wipe the floor with you unless you save the quest for late in the game.
* VitriolicBestBuds:
** This is what Varric and Cassandra's relationship seems to become by the end of the game. Of special note, is Cassandra's comment about the Divine "needing to see the chest hair for herself." Gets pretty funny when Varric wants to play "I Spy".
** Iron Bull and Krem are quickly established as this as well; their relationship seems to be a combination of this trope, BashBrothers, and BigBrotherInstinct.
** Vivienne and Dorian seem initially to absolutely despise each other, judging from how much venom their comments towards each other contain. However, once the Inquisitor comments upon this (or tries to intervene), they turn out to be closer to the trope, especially after you consider that, if the Inquisitor is in a relationship with Dorian, that Vivienne actually ''stands up'' for him when his countrymen express disgust. (This is possibly due to her distinctly Orlesian tastes. Censure for someone dabbling in forbidden magic, all well and good. Mocking one's choice of paramour? Absolutely ''gauche''.)
* WarForFunAndProfit: The HiddenVillain is deliberately prolonging the various wars for their own benefit. Case in point, the Breach opens right on top of a peace summit for the Mage-Templar War and kills every single person there (except the player character).
* WarIsHell:
** Many characters are scarred by the events of the civil war. The first trailer shows the world on the verge of collapse, with a shell-shocked Varric standing amidst a field of dead in Crestwood.
** The fighting on the Exalted Plains during the Orlesian Civil War was so terrible that demons and undead have run rampant in the region. The region being home to the site of the final battle of the Exalted March against the Dales doesn't help with the stability of the Veil in the region either. [[spoiler:Nor does the Freemen Venatori mage who has commanded the undead to attack both Orlesian armies.]]
*** Not helping it is the [[DaylightHorror disturbing]] SceneryGorn: what with the abandoned siege engines and ruined trenches filled with bodies (both of the dead and undead variety) you'd be forgiven if you thought for a moment you stepped out of Thedas and into some fantasy version of [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne mid-1910's Europe.]]
** The fighting in the Hinterlands is between the fringe elements of both sides of the Mage/Templar War who have long since gone off the deep end and disobeyed the withdrawal orders from both sides, with the hapless civilians caught in the middle. It's telling that the only way to ensure the refugees' safety is to wipe out ''both'' groups of extremists before choosing which mainline group you approach for help.
* TheWarRoom: Haven and Skyhold each have one, complete with war table. The war table allows you to manage the Inquisition's operations: side quests that you send your agents to handle while you're pursuing the plot.
* TheWarSequence:
** "In Your Heart Shall Burn" [[spoiler:has the Inquisition's army defending Haven from either the Venatori or the Red Templars. Since the Inquisition doesn't have much of an army at this point, it quickly turns into the Inquisitor's party of four against the entire enemy army.]]
** "Here Lies the Abyss" [[spoiler:has the Inquisition's (now much more powerful) army facing off against the mind-controlled Grey Wardens and Corypheus's army of demons while assailing an infamously unconquerable fortress.]]
** "What Pride Had Wrought" [[spoiler:has the Inquisition's army and the Orlesian army fighting the last of Corypheus's forces while the party tries to stop Corypheus from acquiring the secrets of the Temple of Mythal.]]
* WasOnceAMan: The Red Templars, especially the more hideous transformations, and especially the Behemoths.
* WeAreStrugglingTogether: The people of Thedas are having ''serious'' cooperation problems, moreso than in previous ''Dragon Age'' games. Templars and mages are going at it, as usual, but there's more. The Chantry's various different organizations break from each other following the Breach opening on top of the Conclave and killing everyone there; the Templars, the sword arm of the Chantry, break off to do their own thing, and the Seekers have left as well. The Orlesian Grey Wardens have disappeared almost completely for typically-mysterious Grey Warden reasons, Orlais has been plunged into civil war between an Empress who is ruthless in holding on to her throne and her former heir-apparent Chevalier cousin who feels he has the right to it, and so on. The Inquisition, therefore, are the only people who've got their act together enough to take on the real problems like the gigantic hole in the sky. A lot of the conflict is [[DivideAndConquer being stirred up by the bad guys deliberately]], but the foundations already existed.
* WeHaveBecomeComplacent: A common thread in the story. Most of the more influential organizations of Thedas have become so self-assured and stagnant that the Elder One and his followers are able to destabilize the status quo completely in a short time. Only the new Inquisition is willing to break through tradition enough to combat this threat effectively while the other major groups are either [[AHouseDivided consumed by internal squabbles]] or being corrupted by the Elder One's followers.
** The Inquisition itself ultimately succumbs to this by ''Trespasser'', being a massive private military force with no definitive purpose, no allegiance to any nation, and [[spoiler: being infiltrated by both the Qun's and Fen'harel's spies.]]
* WebcomicTime: The timescale for the game is incredibly uncertain. We don't get much indication of how much time passes in-game, especially since TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot is involved (for reference, characters refer to crossing the Waking Sea as being one heck of a journey (two weeks' journey according to Varric's story in the second game), but you travel further than that between the Hinterlands and Haven--''on land''). It's implied that capturing a Keep takes about a week, but no time passes in the rest of the region. At one point, Cullen mentions that it's been "months" since he joined the Inquisition, but that's the closest we get to knowing how much time has passed. ''Trespasser'' eventually reveals that the main game's story ended the year after it began, though more exact dates are still unknown.
* WelcomeToCorneria:
** Oddly averted sometimes in this game. Unlike previous games in the series, most dialogue options already chosen disappear completely. That means, if you aren't paying attention, dialogue can be lost once picked. And an option that doesn't disappear will often lead to a hostile reaction if picked again. For example, if you ask Harritt to tell his life story a second time, he curtly refuses. Even more harshly, if you try to talk to Sera a second time about her differences with other elves, she lays into you, and her approval drops.
** Played straight with the maligned Requisition Officer: every time you enter a camp you'll either hear "word for you!", "Ser, I have something for you!" or "Inquisitor, if you have a moment!"
** The Multiplayer characters all have a small selection of lines and reactions to others' lines. A ''very'' small selection.
* WhamEpisode:
** "In Your Heart Shall Burn" drastically changes the scope of the story. [[spoiler:You finally manage to close the Breach for good, only for the Elder One's forces to attack Haven. The Mages or Templars (whichever faction you didn't side with) have joined the Elder One. The Elder One is revealed to be Corypheus from ''Dragon Age II'''s "Legacy" DLC. Corypheus reveals that he created the Mark and therefore it is not divine. Corypheus destroys Haven, but Solas brings the Inquisition to the fortress of Skyhold. Lastly, the Herald is made the Inquisitor.]]
** As Gabe of ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' put it, that mission seems like the last one based on how the initial conflict is set up (and how much time you can put in prior to it if you're a completionist) but it should be called "Start playing ''Dragon Age Inquisition''."
** The Siege of Adamant in the Warden plot line, and the subsequent [[spoiler:trip to the Fade, are a massive one. Considering it reveals that Divine Justina saved you, and in the end, either Hawke or Stroud/Alistair/Loghain will HoldTheLine in a HeroicSacrifice to let you escape, it's not surprising.]]
* WhamLine:
** You have the option of parodying this through use of your knowledge of [[spoiler:the future.]]
--->'''Erimond:''' Soon, I will raise a demon army for my master!\\
'''Inquisitor:''' Ah, I was wondering when the demon army would show up.\\
'''Erimond:''' You... knew about it, did you?
** From Varric's personal quest.
--->'''Bianca:''' Red lyrium... [[spoiler:it has the [[TheCorruption Blight]]. Do you know what that means?]]\\
'''Varric:''' What, that two deadly things combine to form something super-awful?\\
'''Bianca:''' Lyrium [[spoiler:is ''alive''... or something like it. The Blight can't infect minerals. Only animals.]]
** From Blackwall's personal quest:
--->'''Blackwall:''' [[spoiler:No. I am not Blackwall. I never was Blackwall. Warden Blackwall is dead, and has been for years. I assumed his name to hide, like a coward, from who I really am.]]
** Two during the "What Pride Has Wrought" main quest:
--->'''Abelas:''' [[spoiler: The shemlen did not destroy Arlathan. We elvhen warred upon ourselves.]]
--->'''Abelas:''' [[spoiler:"Elven legend" is wrong. The Dread Wolf had nothing to do with [Mythal's] murder.]]
** After the events of the Arbor Wilds, you run into [[spoiler:Flemeth]].
--->'''Morrigan:''' ...You are [[spoiler:''Mythal''.]]
** From TheStinger:
---> '''Flemeth:''' You should not have [[spoiler:given [[ArtifactOfDoom your orb]] to Corypheus, [[TricksterGod Dread Wolf]].]]\\
''[[spoiler:(camera cuts to [[WhamShot Solas walking up behind Flemeth]])]]''
** ''Trespasser'' has two huge ones:
--->'''Archivist Spirit''': How could the Dread Wolf [[spoiler:cast a Veil between the world that wakes and the world that sleeps]]?
--->'''Solas''': [[spoiler:I will save the elven people, even if it means ''this'' world must die.]]
* WhatIsOneMansLifeInComparison: Invoked by Mistress Poulin, the leader of the village of Sahrnia. Once she realized that [[spoiler:she'd been tricked by the Red Templars into giving them slaves for their Red Lyrium mine]], she kept the information secret to avoid the townsfolk from fighting back or doing something rash. She sold them ill and infirm slaves and put all of the money she received to work feeding and sheltering the ones she protected. She was going to keep up this pretense and never tell any of the victims the truth for as long as possible until rescue arrived. If the Inquisitor looks at this with pragmatic eyes and asks her what would have happened if no rescue came, she'll state that everyone was screwed no matter what she did -- she simply did what she could to protect as many as she could for as long as she could.
** Leliana also brings this up if you discuss "[[BadFuture In Hushed Whispers]]" with her, stating of course she would have given her life to give you a second chance at stopping such an event.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Subverted with your early Inquisition staff. Even if you save them in Haven, they still have replacements in Skyhold. This trope would be played straight, but they are still hanging around Skyhold and have some explanation why they're doing something else or at least no longer in charge of things.
** Played straight with the Mage/Templar War, which has at best an interlude. While the Inquisition can involve itself with either side, and the other has no clear leadership in the aftermath, the underlying troubles remain.
* WhatTheHellHero: Various party members all have a moment where they confront the Inquisitor about their actions.
** At the end of the "Under Her Skin" storyline, the Inquisitor finds a Tevinter magister held by a containment spell that causes him pain. The spell was cast by Corypheus as practice [[spoiler: for the spell he will cast on Calpernia after she drinks from the Well of Sorrows.]] The magister, Erasthenes, asks the Inquisitor to perform a MercyKill; if the Inquisitor refuses on the basis that his information is too valuable, Erasthenes calls out the Inquisitor for using him the same way that Corypheus did.
* WhatTheHellPlayer: In the caves below Crestwood, if the player chooses to kill a small group of nugs that pose no threat and couldn't conceivably have been caught in the crossfire, Cassandra, if in the group, will comment "Was that ''really'' necessary?!" You'll even get slight disapproval! [[FriendToAllLivingThings Cole]] will be similarly horrified and exclaim that they weren't doing anything. (Thanks to a glitch, these reactions and disapproval may still happen even if you ''don't'' kill the nugs.)
** All companions have a reaction, and subverted by Sera. She gains approval because of her hatred of rodents, from living in alleyways. She can get [[WhyDidItHavetoBeSnakes quite worked up]].
* WhereIsYourXNow:
-->'''The Elder One:''' Tell me: Where is your [[{{God}} Maker]] now? Call him. Call down his wrath upon me. You cannot, for he does not exist!
* WhereItAllBegan: [[spoiler:The final battle with Corypheus takes place at the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes, where the game began. Moreover, Corypheus makes the ruins float in the air - remarkably similar to how the Black City, where it ALL arguably began, is made of ruins that are floating in The Fade.]]
* WhoWritesThisCrap: The Inquisitor and other companions make a lot of cracks about unpopular elements and plot holes in the previous game. Varric, the in-universe author, takes it in stride.
* WindFromBeneathMyWings: High dragons are able to generate strong winds by flapping their wings while on the ground, pushing away melee characters and deflecting projectiles and spells.
* WithLyrics: Many of the bard songs are in this style, adding lyrics to the subject's {{Leitmotif}} or a related theme. So you have a song about Sera set to her theme, a song about Empress Celine set to the Orlesian theme, etc.
* TheWorldIsJustAwesome: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SREM6E4Fvs launch trailer]] shows vistas of Thedas to a wispy, ethereal cover of Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World."
* WorthIt: Varric considers finishing the next book in his OldShame ''Swords and Shields'' romance serial to be "completely worth it" for Cassandra's reaction when she's presented with a sneak peek pre-editing copy.
* WrongContextMagic: The Breach altered the Veil around Thedas, completely altering the established [[MagicAIsMagicA laws of magic]]. This allowed for previously impossible magical feats such as the Rift Mage school and [[spoiler: TimeTravel to any point after the Breach event]]. Mages such as the Inquisitor are often surprised by just how much the rules have changed overnight.
* YouCantThwartStageOne:
** [[spoiler:Averted. Most of the Elder One's plans throughout the game are only necessary because Stage One (acquire the Anchor, use it to enter the Black City and become a God) was thwarted more or less by accident before the game even begins. If it wasn't, the Elder One would have taken the world before anyone knew he existed.]]
** [[spoiler: Magister Alexius ''tried'', but his time magic could not send him back before the Breach.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: The Nightmare demon is too huge for you to possibly fight (to you it looks like a massive spider the size of a mountain) and you only survive by someone else driving it off. The boss fight with it is just you fighting one humanoid aspect of it, like a mini-avatar. It's also probably not actually a spider, that's just what the Inquisitor sees it as.
* ZeroApprovalGambit: A few easily-missed codex pages reveal that [[spoiler: Maferath]], the ultimate betrayer of the backstory of the entire series, actually pulled one of these to enable his descendants to eventually found Orlais, a nation finally capable of threatening [[TheEmpire The Empire]]. However, the codex likely stems from propaganda; Maferath was ''Ferelden's'' first proto-king, and his death doomed the nation to five hundred years of chaos because none of his successors among the Alamarri could unite the shattered tribes. It would be ''just like'' Orlesians to attribute the founding of their nation to providence.
[[/folder]]

** Some of the companions cannot be recruited after a certain point. For example, if you [[spoiler:go to Adamant]] without having recruited Blackwall, he disappears.
** The same goes for the ''entire'' ''Trespasser'' DLC: Once you activate it on the War Table, ''all'' previous areas, including Skyhold itself and the ''other'' [=DLCs=], are blocked off; and once the DLC is complete, it automatically goes back to the start menu. It truly is meant to be the mission saved for last.

** Unlike the previous games, which each gave us a single high dragon to kill, ''Inquisition'' features a total of ten of them, introducing a bit of variety in their appearance, abilities, and tactics.

** The village of Crestwood is under attack by legions of demon-possessed corpses rising from the lake, and so it's appropriately dark and raining all the time. But once the rift is closed and the undead stop coming - surprise! - the weather instantly turns almost painfully sunny (though it's still raining in some places, it makes the landscape brilliant rather than dreary). Possibly subverted, because draining the lake to reach the rift ticks off the high dragon nesting nearby and causes her to become aggressive, which arguably makes her a bigger threat than the undead.

* {{Unishment}}: Andraste's Sacrifice is an amulet for Mage and Rogue classes that can give a fair boost to mana regeneration, cooldown times, and also generates [[BodyArmorAsHitpoints Guard]]... but at the cost of generating threat and drawing enemy attention. This is typically not something you want to have as a non-Warrior class not meant to take a pounding... unless you're a [[MagicKnight Knight]][[BarrierWarrior -Enchanter]], in which case you're probably tanking and want the attention anyway.

* CleverCrows: Technically they're ravens, but Leliana's messenger birds are everywhere and will observe what you do, and you can go right up to some and they won't fly off. They have a uncanny ability to know just where you are and what you're doing, even physically entering the Fade themselves. [[spoiler: If Leliana was killed during ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' and not made Divine in this game, the Leliana we see in ''Inquisition'' turns out to be a Fade spirit similar to Cole, and will disappear in a great cloud of ravens once she's no longer needed. This adds a certain amount of FridgeBrilliance to the details about the ravens.]]

** During "In Hushed Whispers," the Herald is [[spoiler: sent forward in time a year. Any items you find and level progress your companions make somehow carry over when you return to the present.]] This one may count under AcceptableBreaksFromReality, since otherwise the player may well feel cheated out of those things.

* TooAwesomeToUse: Focus abilities are extremely powerful but can only be recharged by dealing damage to enemies, and fully recharging all three bars takes so ridiculously long you'll soon learn to deploy it only against the toughest bosses. First-time players have it particularly hard because they usually don't know in advance when and where said worthy targets are scheduled to show up, and how many opportunities they'll have to recharge before the next major boss battle.

** One quest titled ''For What It's Worth'' has you retrieve a wedding ring. A lot of sentimental value but fighting some forty corrupted spiders for the ring may not be worth it[[note]]This is actually a bug that happens when you enter the location under-leveled, but even the intended number can overwhelm an ill-prepared party[[note]].

** The Inquisitor:[[note]]The Inquisitor is the only character that potentially has access to two Focus Abilities[[/note]] Mark of the Rift. Causes damage in a large area and can banish demons outright.

* TooAwesomeToUse: Focus abilities are extremely powerful but can only be recharged by dealing damage to enemies, and fully recharging all three bars takes so ridiculously long you'll soon learn to deploy it only against the toughest bosses[[note]]For reference, cleaning out ''an entire map'''s worth of enemies ''may'' be sufficient, provided said map is large and populated enough[[/note]]. First-time players have it particularly hard because they usually don't know in advance when and where said worthy targets are scheduled to show up, and how many opportunities they'll have to recharge before the next major boss battle.

** And that's just the main game. With ''Trespasser'' installed, another example is already rearing its head barely two years after the first one, [[spoiler:and the DLC ends with what's left of the Inquisition preparing their attempt to prevent it, [[LeftHanging setting the stage for the sequel]]]].

** Yet another gag weapon is [[http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/The_Jade_Ham The Jade Ham]], a one-handed mace with a large ham for a head (no, not that kind of LargeHam) that's available with the ''Jaws of Hakkon'' DLC. Its item description is full of ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'' {{Shoutout}}s - [[CaptainObvious hence the name]].

* DrillSergeantNasty: A drill instructor is working over some raw recruits at Griffon Wing Keep once you take over the fortress.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: Most elves continue to have an aversion to conventional footwear. With the right armor equipped, the Inquisitor can join their feud against boots.

* BoringButPractical: There is a key or controller button that highlights nearby collectibles when pressed. Hammer it until your finger bleeds.

* StoryDifficultySetting: The easiest mode is called Casual: "For players new to role-playing games or those interested in a purely narrative focus."