Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s new trailer is chock-full of details that my Tumblr mutuals keep screenshotting and dissecting. But those uninitiated with the deeper lore of the franchise might be wondering why everyone is specifically going feral for the woman who shapeshifts from the form of a giant crow. I mean, besides the fact that she made such a badass entrance.
Basically, the trailer confirmed that Morrigan, Witch of the Wilds is officially back (after her voice actor Claudia Black oh-so-demurely denied it), and oh my God, depending on what you did in the previous games, some big, big consequences might be ahead.
Who is Morrigan in the grand scheme of Dragon Age?
Short answer: She’s a shapeshifting Goth swamp witch who hates everyone at first, but might just become your best friend and/or lover.
Longer answer: She’s one of the companions from the first Dragon Age game, Origins, whose weird swamp-witch mother, Flemeth, basically mandates that she goes along with your player character. She’s cold, intelligent, and a total badass mage. You can win her respect, and even her love, and she’s just, like, so cool.
So what happened in that first game?
Over the course of Dragon Age: Origins, she eventually confides in you that Flemeth intends to use her body as a vessel so that she can stay young and beautiful forever, something she’s done for centuries to her other “daughters.” You help her kill her mom. Later on in the end game, when you’re faced with the fact that either you or one of your companions in the party will need to sacrifice yourselves to save the world, she offers you a solution: If you’re a dude, you can impregnate her (if you’re a lady, your companion will), and the baby will essentially save your soul from being consumed when you slay the Archdemon.
After the final battle, no matter what path you choose, she takes off. It’s revealed in the Witch Hunt DLC that she recognizes that her mom isn’t perma-dead and goes off to hide in a secret network of elven mirrors that everyone thinks is defunct (more on that later). If she has a kid, she takes her son with her. If you romanced her, you can join her.
In previous games, BioWare’s default world state (the one that players who haven’t played the previous games inherit) had a Morrigan who didn’t complete that ritual, and thus did not have a son. So, it’s likely that the deal is the same in The Veilguard, and if you’re going in without importing prior decisions, you probably won’t have Morrigan who is a mom. Otherwise, she has a son named Kieran who will be 20 years old in this game and he might make an appearance too. And he just might have the soul of an old god dwelling within him.
Morrigan doesn’t make a direct appearance in Dragon Age II, but her mother does. As it turns out, Flemeth had a feeling that Morrigan was gonna kill her, so she safeguarded a piece of herself in a magic amulet that she tasks the player character with delivering in exchange for helping them escape demons. After a big ritual, Flemeth regenerates, says something cryptic to the player character, then takes off.
And here’s where things get spicy…
Morrigan reappears in 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition, where she assists the player character in taking down Corypheus, the Big Bad of the game. Part of his big master plan is using that secret network of previously assumed defunct mirrors, so she teams up with you to stop him before he does.
This leads you to finding a mysterious well in the temple of Mythal, an ancient elven goddess. Morrigan offers to drink from it, as it will give control over the mirror and thus prevent Corypheus from using it. As the player, you can decide which of you does so.
Either way, it’s revealed that while the drinker does get some hidden ancient knowledge, they also become a lackey of the ancient elven goddess. And that ancient elven goddess? Well, it just so happens that Morrigan’s dearly departed mother is her current vessel.
However, in the epilogue of the game, everyone’s favorite elven mage Solas (the bald guy in The Veilguard trailers, who is big angry because his master plan has been thwarted) seemingly kills Flemeth…
What does this mean for the new game?
Going into The Veilguard, you can have a Morrigan who is both a mother and at the whims of the goddess Mythal, who may or may not be her own toxic mother. Or, you can have a childless Morrigan and a player character dealing with the fallout of being Mythal’s lackey! Or some combination of that. It’s unclear at this stage what the default option in The Veilguard will be, but there’s probably going to be ramifications for whatever you decided for Morrigan way back when…
One very telling detail in the trailer: Morrigan (who now has a bit of a “I am now 40 something so maybe I should tidy up a bit” bob going on instead of a messy bun) is wearing the same headpiece that Flemeth wears. Does that mean she’s become Mythal’s vessel? Now that the elven gods are walking among the world again, that could be especially disastrous for Morrigan.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is out Oct. 31.
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