My name is Steve Saylor, and this is my quest log for Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD. If you want to play the game and come back to listen or read this later, please do. Don’t worry, I’ll be here when you’re ready.
Hello, this is journal entry number one of my quest log of Dragon Age The Veilguard. I'm Steve Saylor. And yeah, this is my second journal, as it were, for games that I wanted to be able to play and chronicle and document my playthrough of them. And this time it is Dragon Age The Veilguard. No story spoilers in this one as of right now because I literally only really just started. I spent majority of my time just in the character creation.
Character Creation
I want to talk about character creation for a second because I kind of wish that there was a little bit more simplification when it comes to designing your character. Granted, this game has a lot of options in order to be able to customize a character however the heck you want. But to me, I find them a little too daunting.
I try to be able to create a character that I kinda like, but I always seem to default into just whatever looks okay to me. Usually it's either one of two things: if I choose a male character, it's someone that looks similar to me with generally close to blonde, short cropped hair and a blondish white beard. If it's a game that has glasses, then I'll put glasses on and make it look like myself—a little bit of my own build, pretty tall, and a little stocky. Or, if I choose a female character to play, I generally create a character that sort of looks like a cross between a WWE wrestler and someone with really bright red hair. I don't know why I just like that on the characters that I play or create in games, but I love either bright red hair or bright white hair.
When I tried to play Dragon Age Inquisition, which I'll get into sort of the Dragon Age aspect in a minute, I tried to create a character that I named Rhea, after Rhea Ripley from WWE. I only decided to do that after I had already started creating the character. I went with white hair instead of black hair, and it wasn't until I got into the game that I thought, "I should've chosen black hair for Rhea instead of white," but it was okay.
When I get into these character creation screens, especially when you have to decide between how big a nose is or how high the cheekbones are, I just don't see a difference half the time, and it's hard for me to create a custom character. If there are preset faces, I will look through them all and pick one that appeals to me, maybe customize it a little by changing the eyebrows, eye color, or a bit of the nose or face shape. But now, I've gotten to a point where, especially if choosing a male character like I did in this game, I go straight to hair and facial hair customization. Anytime I try to create a face that I like and then add hair and the hairstyle that I want, it never looks right.
My Character Design Process
This time I went straight to hairstyle. I chose a kind of semi-dirty blonde, slightly lighter, dirty blonde hair with a bit more fantasy-driven style. I tried to find a character with a similar hairstyle and beard as me, but it didn’t feel fantasy enough. So, I decided on longer hair past the ears, not necessarily stylized but just naturally grown past the ears on both sides.
I went with a bit of a pirate sort of beard—a long, bow-shaped mustache and a thin strip of hair down the middle with slight sideburns. It has a swashbuckling vibe with a thicker mustache and beard instead of the thin style you see on a Robin Hood-type character. I also added a scar across the eye to give that physical effect of being blind. Interestingly, this game lets you add cataracts, so I gave him a slight cataract look.
I chose a lower, deeper voice and a tall, stocky build. I’m not entirely sure I’ll stick with this look. Maybe I’ll play the character a bit to see if he grows on me, or perhaps I’ll switch to a female character because the male design doesn’t feel quite right. The customization is a bit intimidating. I spent about an hour and a half trying to figure out what kind of character I wanted to create.
Thoughts on Customization
There’s so much customization that I wish there were more templates to choose from and customize. This game has some templates, but a lot of the finer details are left to the player. I like templates because they inspire me and give me a starting point to customize from.
I liked that you could choose voices that weren’t linked to body types. You could pick a male voice for a feminine character or vice versa. I went with a lower-pitched male voice to semi-match my own. It’s a deep British voice that I quite like.
My Character’s Backstory
I decided on a rogue assassin from the Crows’ guild. The character did something wrong while on a mission and is now trying to make up for it, kind of like a Batman-type character but as an assassin rogue. If I had known that beforehand, I might have tried to create a Bruce Wayne-type character, but I’m curious to see how this plays out.
When I played Dragon Age Inquisition, I didn’t get far. I got about 10-15 hours in and stopped because it felt repetitive. This game lets you briefly choose decisions from Inquisition, which is cool but also a bit spoilery if you haven’t played it. I tried to recreate my character Rhea from Inquisition as closely as I remembered and chose no past romances because I hadn’t gotten to that point in Inquisition. I decided my character believes there is still good in Solas and that the Inquisition was disbanded. Minor spoilers for Inquisition, I guess.
I’m liking the swashbuckling vibe for my character because it allows me to be serious, funny, or flirty. It’s like building a D&D character—I have a preconceived idea but leave room to discover who they are through gameplay. I’ve just started exploring the game mechanics and accessibility options. There’s a lot more accessibility than I initially realized. I saw a list of settings before starting, and now that I’ve played around with them, I like how customizable things are. I’ll tweak the settings more as I play, but so far, I’m happy.
Conclusion
So that’s my first foray into Dragon Age The Veilguard—building a character and starting the journey. Let’s see what Solas is up to in this strange city.
Thanks for reading. Check out my Questlog journals for other games like Indiana Jones and The Great Circle. I’m looking forward to continuing this journey with you. Take care, and I’ll see you in the next one.
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