What if a wizard tower was also a penal colony?

Oh Anon I love talking about dragon age dwarves so thank you <3

I would say that probably they don't hate magic as much or are less afraid cause when Orzammar dwarves interact with magic is probably from a grey warden who came there to kill darkspawn, and in general they do like the wardens because of this. But also they are very traditional and magic is some weird non-dwarf surface thing. They are fine selling lyrium to templars in the south wich is the thing keeping the circles strong, but also they are fine selling lyrium to the tevinter imperium mages. So it's more a practical thing to them or how it benefits them, or a far away thing they don't care about, but it brings them money! So there is a lot to play with here.

Now, even if the Orzammar circle of mage is not canon anymore, it was once, and this was the epilogue if you helped Dagna to study magic.

“This inspired mages from other parts of Thedas to establish a new Circle of Magi in Orzammar itself, one that had ready access to dwarven lyrium... and lies outside the Chantry's power completely. The willingness of Orzammar to harbor apostates sparked outrage that began whispers that the Divine was contemplating a new Exalted March.”

I wished the Orzammar Circle of magic was still there cause thinking about all the possibilities of how that would had go are soooooo interesting to me....

We also know the carta hires apostates (we fight some of them). And we can check what Dagna, Oghren and Sigrun think of magic.

As we know, Dagna loves magic, but she is considered very weird for this... BUT also we never see anyone in ferelden or orlais that is a non mage half this passionate or curious about magic, so that shows in Orzammar is not this horrible horrible thing. We know she could read some books on magic that she could get in Orzammar, some from tevinter (so they will talk of magic favorably). And really, the main problem is that she wanted to go to the surface. If you talk with her dad, he says "Dwarves don't do magic. Dagna knows that. It's just a childhood fantasy that dies hard." Wich implies to me that is not weird for dwarf orzammar kids to fantasy about magic.

Sigrun ALSO finds magic cool and interesting. She ask Anders if he can set a bush on fire of freeze it in one of their banters, and Anders say magic isn't for her amusement.

Now, Oghren doesn't find magic that cool. He tells Morrigan out of the blue, "You couldn't hurt me if you wanted to, witch, you know that? (...) Dwarves resist magic, woman. There's nothing you could do." wich indicates there is a bunch of them who can be like "ah magic won't do anything to me <3 im resistant" but he is also wary of this strange outsider magical thing. He also has a conver with Morrigan where he ask if she can turn into animals, and how do they know she is really a human woman (so!! magic is strange -> so he is suspicious and defensive about it). With Anders, the talks of magic are always to tell him "you are not manly enough. Unlike me".

Dagna also makes some comments that sound a bit like... she says with pride she can do enchantment and mages can't, not even how hard they try. So you can also see in her and Oghren that dwarves can get a bit defensive about the non-magic thing.

Dragon age protagonists but they're a banknote

i'm sorry but this dialogue so much reminds me of this meme

Carver Hawke

“ she is a part of me, no more separate than your heart from your chest. “

(fyi, my game is modded, so if i say something blatantly untrue, whoops! my bad.) (also, if you know more /have good tips, please add!)

Crafted armor in Dragon Age Inquisition is often wildly better than any drops in the game, and can speed up gameplay and what areas you can explore in the early game. You can skip the hinterlands easily with crafted armor! Boy do I love skipping right to late game explorable areas early.

i skip any armor schematic that doesn't have armor and leg slots. arm and leg slots get you a ton of bonus stats. don't ignore the modular slots in your armor and weapons: they can help a ton. i typically skip the pretty dlc armor that doesn't have arm and leg slots. tier 4 armors are tempting! tier 3 modular armor is often better depending on what you're building. pure armor rating is not all there is.

(nightmare mecha armor with not very unified stats)

i personally adore any material that adds guard to non-warriors: huge for going into areas where you shouldn't be, as you gain it with each hit and its saved me many times.

2. when you unlock the masterwork slot, lots of materials have (in my opinion) far better bonuses than the essence of perfection. it'll look tempting! don't use essence of perfection! i like things that give me guard. i love not dying. if you're a rogue, things can get insane with masterwork slot bonuses. (wiki list of masterwork bonuses)

3. pay attention at shops! a lot of the good modular armor is in shops. black emporium has a lot. you want to look for things with the Superior and Refined prefixes. They'll have different offense and defense slots, so sometimes one will make more sense than the other for how you're playing. armor has four tiers: tier four is typically dlc only, three is good enough.

4. crafting materials: there are four rarities of crafting materials. 4 is typically harder to get. if you have the descent you can just buy 'em at the legion of the dead camp, i believe. t3 to t4 on a good mage armor in the main slot jumps my armor rating from 244 to 269. Not as good rarity is still good in a good schematic: it can easily carry you for a good chunk of the game, replace once you get better materials/areas. black emporium also has a small selection of good materials. (wiki list of crafting materials/where to get/what they do)

if you don't want to seek those materials out, honestly, just shove things in the biggest slots possible. gather as you play. if it looks fancy, pick it up! buy a big armor for your class from the black emporium and pump those materials into it. wiki has a great list of armor schematics that you can sort by tier and then just go grab the easiest one to get. it'll outclass any dropped armor, and once you get to the golden nug, you can transfer most of those recipes between saves.