#aging dragons

The year is 2015 and your friend is once again beseeching you to play this cool fun RPG that they really love. It's called Dragon Age.

"Are there dragons," you ask? "Yes," they assure you. You're dubious, because there are three of these things and you're not sure you want to get into a whole franchise right now. But the first one is on sale for a pittance, so you decide to give it a shot.

After wrestling with EA Origins and being hand-held through installing the mod that helps the game not crash every five minutes, you start your journey. You meet some folks, find a dog, and promptly get lost in the Deep Roads. You turn off the game and don't touch it for another 9 years.

Hi, my name is Bark and I've lost control of my life. In the 4 months between June and October, I played all 3 games (and most of the DLC), read 3.5 books, listened to the podcast, peeked into the TTRPG, and watched the Netflix animated series. And after all of that, I played Veilguard, read another book and a half plus many short stories, read the majority of the comics, and watched the terrible terrible very bad movie about Cassandra.

If you are reading this and thinking "it can't be good for you to devour 15 years' worth of material in the span of 6 months", then you are correct. My brain has been overwhelmed by Dragon Age and if I don't create an outlet I will explode.

The tl;dr is, I want to stick my hands wrist-deep into Thedas and feel it squelch between my fingers and get it stuck under my nails. I am inviting anyone who wants to come play in the sandbox with me to do just that.

The format will be old school forum: no instant messages pinging your phone, no character limits to stifle your verbosity, no pressure to respond immediately. This will be an explicitly chill and fun-first space moderated and managed entirely by me, an adult with a full-time job who pays taxes and reads the news. There will be some rules and expectations, as in any communal space, but I hope you won't find them too unreasonable. Please don't make me have to work harder by being an ass on a web forum where the goal is to play pretend in a video game world.

If all that sounds fun, then join me... in Thedarpf!