#lore archiving

Because we already have an unreliable narrator, we can have magically appearing enemies and repetitive maps. Because Varric is too lazy or over-exaggerating or just not very creative. 

like when he describes boats visually by being “made out of wood and shit”...like that’s a legitimate canon thing he does almost word for word. He says “and shit” and then “it was just a really nice boat okay?”

The Celia/Maeve thing isn’t that big of a deal, just yeah her name is now totally Celia Maeve Loghain Mac Tir. A cabinetmaker/cabinet’s daughter who verbally shut down the Hero of River Dane.

Or how one thing says the Blight lasted 100 year, but another says 192 (with 192 being correct) and can be attributed to the very real shortening/generalization of time that happens in books.

Like honestly if you have the chance, go to the end of the World of Thedas Volume 2 and look at the Errata list for World of Thedas Volume 1. It is one of the best things I have actually ever read in a Bioware book and perfectly represents what is so great about the fluidity of Dragon Age lore. For example:

I don’t actually, I would have a ko-fi if I did more original content or codex building (and on a more regular basis); but my personal feelings are that I don’t like the idea of making money off just compiling Bioware’s, canon Dragon Age lore.

It really is just a personal thing and I use the compiled lore I do for my own things sometimes, so it’s not a big deal for me. Maybe one day I’ll do a ko-fi donation link, especially if I can throw myself back into my DA art (I used to do wicked grace cards before my hard drive got wiped).

A bit of both actually.

I’ve always been very good at breaking big things down into smaller things (taking a process and breaking it down into the steps) and remembering/building on facts. The first one helping see how different lore connect together and the second helping refer back to or at least find a piece of lore.

Meanwhile, I have gotten better with collecting lore. Over time I have paid attention to Bioware and the writers, whose writing styles and personalities tell a lot about how the lore will play out. For instance, Patrick Weekes is a huge applier of symbolism. Which is why I can look at things about Solas, such as his personal quest “All New, Faded For Her” and say with confidence the title itself is an anagram for “Dread Wolf Fen'Harel” (i.e. another in-game clue about his true identity that is easy to miss). It also helps that after a while I was able to figure out where to start looking for information and learned different sources to help build off it. It’s definitely part intuition and part learning.

My advice would be to start small and with a general idea, maybe work on a single race or place and learn about that?

Read some in-game codices and just pick up a few things here or there to explore more. The Dragon Age wiki is actually a good place to go through codices and see which ones are connected or find sources for information, though I wouldn’t and don’t use it directly for any information outside of codices. Another helpful resource for codices is downloadable codices by @kinlochhold, which are searchable by both game and by using the “Find on Page” button for specific topics.

There are also some bizarre places to pick up lore, but I would not recommend them for casual searching and beginners; which is the Bioware Forums and Twitter, a lot of times the devs will answer lore questions and those can be useful if you can find them...which is far from easy. 

Instead if you can get a hold on one of the official DA lore books (The World of Thedas, which is written in-character for a Chantry Scholar) or even the game guides (Prima Game Guides or Tabletop Dragon AGE guide) those can be extremely helpful. 

Most of all, listen to the characters, realize who they are, and try to play out as many choices/PCs as you can. Take Vivienne’s knowledge on elves for example, Vivienne is quick to tell a Lavellan, she dislikes, about how their people handles mages; yet a Lavellan, Vivienne likes, gets a confession that Vivienne knows nothing about elves other than what the Chantry has taught her. Such a small detail can and has caused a lot of confusion about the Dalish clan lore, but exploring further shows it’s really only more Chantry propaganda taking the worst Dalish clans and making them seem normal and common.

It’s sometimes a tedious and time consuming thing being a lore buff, but learning where small things are connected or actually important takes building up that general lore knowledge first. You have to know where to start, before you start picking at things and you have to love doing it too.  

Lastly, I’ll leave with an example my process, I’m actually using now.