It’s kinda nuts honestly! Especially since being a slave just… doesn’t seem to have any bearing on the story. My Rook has, not once, has the option to express a special connection to Tevinter. LoF being a slave from Tevinter is just super disconnected - which makes sense, each background only gets 1 region where they have special lines, LoF got written in a way that would’ve needed special attention given to 2 regions. It just feels so… unnecessary? Like it doesn’t add anything to the LoF story because it was executed poorly.

Former slave Shadow Dragon could’ve been brilliant by comparison. In addition to being a great story, it doesn’t add any dev hours for a background needing special lines for 2 locations, since it’s all contained in Tevinter. It would’ve been easier on the devs! And it just writes itself! Former slave turned slave rebellion > former slave turned pirate.

Literally being adopted turned me off of the Shadow Dragon backstory personally, I really don’t get the decision to give the “former slave” story to a LoF of all factions when Shadow Dragon is right there.

Nice to meet another person just ignoring the given backstory and making our own that’s better 🤝

I feel like pretty much all dialogue for Rook’s backstory is segmented rather than viewed as a whole.

You have dialogue relating to your race.

You have dialogue relating to your faction.

And absolutely no consideration for how they might fit together. Of course an elf can have special Dalish dialogue with Davrin. The elf dialogue is likely the same for any faction: I’d bet money a Mournwatch elf could say they’re Dalish at some point. Oh, and here’s your Veil Jumper backstory.

^ This is speculation but it’s the vibe I’ve gotten. There’s special dialogue for each discrete aspect of your character without cohesion.

I was disappointed that the Shadow Dragon option wasn’t a former slave so it’s not like I have a problem with the archetype. It’s just kinda important to know from the beginning :p my Rook is way too cheery for that type of trauma. If I’d known I’d probably have also made a city elf and saved Minrathous. It’s a pretty big bombshell to drop.

Out of curiosity, if you’re further in the game, have you noticed it ever coming up again or is it a one-off?

At least you found out at the hand mirror scene. That’s kinda early in the game still even if it would’ve been nice to have that info in the CC. I kinda feel like if there’s anything relevant to say about your characters backstory, that was the scene to include everything. After decorating my room I was kinda like “okay, my backstory is kinda a blank slate and I am not forced to say I’m Vasoth, I can be a bit creative”.

Retroactively, my Rook is a dumbass who acted clueless about Tevinter despite being from it. And didn’t protect their city… I don’t know why they chose a character being from a location if they weren’t going to handle it properly. Just stick with being from Rivain.

It’s very bizarre though to not give the player the choice of being Dalish or not for a Veil Jumper. It feels like they kinda went one size fits all - you don’t have to be an elf Veil Jumper so non-Dalish is safer. I feel like they didn’t really make your backstory dynamic or reactive to race/class.

Even if it wasn’t on the CC screen, the whole point of decorating your room was to flesh out those details. Anything important and not a choice that wasn’t told already should’ve been mentioned then. Or at another point really freaking early in the game. Let players build on the canon instead of keeping them in the dark for a good chunk of the game.

I totally agree. I’m really hoping that the dialogue with Taash is a one-off and doesn’t come back again, because if that’s the case I can just ignore it (in DAO they changed how a city elf’s mother died partway during the game, and Lavellan can praise Andraste, I can write off throwaway lines as a writing mistake and non-canon).

In Inquisition we might’ve been a bit lacking in backstory compared to 2/O, but at least we had absolutely no surprises and we knew who our character was out of the gate.

The weird thing to me is that having this level of specificity should come with reactivity. Rook, a former slave meeting Shadow Dragons, should be able to mention personally how important their work is to them. Rook should be able to have an opinion on Neve talking about corruption. Etc. It’s not like DAO had a lot of room for headcanons and that was fine because the tradeoff was we felt like a real, fleshed out character. Rook doesn’t get that, but they’ll still include throwaway lines that blow up whatever headcanon you had after several hours and already having made big decisions.

Someone else here ITT mentioned how their Veil Jumper elf had to explicitly mention not being Dalish after rp’ing as Dalish the whole game. They need to pick a route.

Also, same with my Qunari - Taash’s mother has a special mention for Rook appreciating Qunari culture. Yet when Taash talks about being a Qunari in Rivain, my Rook gets to say “yeah I understand mixed cultures because I was a slave from Tevinter” and not “yeah I get people being afraid of me too”. Just pick a lane BioWare.

Thanks. In DAO, city elf partway through randomly changed your backstory from your mother being murdered by humans to dying in childbirth. If I could ignore that, I can ignore another throwaway dialogue line if it never really comes up again.

But yeah, if it’s just a throwaway line they should’ve skipped it altogether instead of blowing up roleplays for a random line. If they wanted to make it truly important, we should’ve had special dialogue with the Shadow Dragons or opinions on Tevinter when we chatted with Neve…

Just let us choose with Taash how we relate to her. I can think of a ton more neutral ways you could bring up Rook’s multiculturalism while being less polarizing. Any Qunari, regardless of backstory, kinda writes itself and I can easily think of others for different options.