If you're anything like me, then chances are you've got canon protagonists for every Dragon Age game you've played. Be it the Grey Warden, Hawke, or The Inquisitor, there's always one custom character I've become more attached to than any other I've created, and they became the "official" lead of my respective adventures in Thedas. As an avid RPG fan, I always take character creation seriously. I get lost in the smaller details in order to tell their story, which is of my own making. Whether that's a subtle scar that speaks of wounds they received during a nasty encounter, or tattoos that illustrate their heritage, personality, or class, I put a lot of thought and time into creating the kind of person I want to play as in the title role.
Every character that's become a mainstay fixture in my Dragon Age headcanon has become very close to my heart over the years. So when I found out we would be reuniting with our Inquisitor in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and we would get to recreate them in its new and improved character creator, nothing could have excited me more. I felt just as elated as I did 10 years ago, when Dragon Age: Inquisition gave me the chance to customize Hawke upon meeting them in Skyhold. But trying to recreate my Inquisitor and once again capture their likeness has become my own greatest personal challenge. Because not only am I trying to bring my former lead character back to life in a way that reflects the passage of 10 years, but I'm also trying to nail their look in Veilguard's new style.
Getting reacquainted
As the Amatus of Dorian Pavus (one of my favorite characters in the Dragon Age series), Quinn Trevelyan, a human mage, became my canon Inquisitor over the course of countless playthroughs. In the lead up to Dragon Age: The Veilguard's release, I had a lot of fun trying to imagine how Quinn might look 10 years on from the events of Inquisition. How would he wear his hair these days? Is it slightly graying to reflect his age? Would he have more laugh or worry lines to show what he's weathered since Trespasser? What about new scars, or the existing ones - maybe they've faded more over time? All of these questions swirled around in my mind, until I had a clearer picture of how I wanted to bring him to life in the latest adventure.
But as with every new character creator, there's a learning curve: from getting to grips with the extensive suite of options and seeing what they all do, to playing around with fresh hairstyles, tattoos, and scars that are quite different to what was on offer in Inquisition. As a result, even with a screenshot of my Inquisitor to hand for reference, my first stab at recreating Quinn proved to be quite tricky. For starters, my inquisitor Trevelyan has a tattoo that frames the bottom of his right eye to reflect his mage class, and none of the ink available in The Veilguard really captured its design. One major plus I appreciated in the character creation process, though, is that you can erase parts of a tattoo you select, which allowed me to eventually find a specific side of a facial pattern that was about as close as I could get to the original.
Scars are perhaps the biggest alteration in The Veilguard, with none of the options really allowing me to capture the exact placement and shape of the scars on Quinn's face. Hair has also had a massive glow up in the new adventure, and the styles are again quite different. But it helps that every time I try to make my Inquisitor, I'm doing so with 10 years more experience behind them, and just as my own hair has chopped and changed often over the years, I like to think his new hairstyle adds to the role-play aspect of his story.
I've played Dragon Age Inquisition many, many times over the last decade, and while Quinn is still my mainstay character, I have a whole roster of different Inquisitors with their own stories and romantic interests. After attempting to recreate Quinn in two consecutive runs, I decided to try my hand at making Wren Lavellan, my elven protagonist - not least because I was dying to see what would happen in The Veilguard given that she romanced Solas. I wondered if it would be any easier, but even trying to make Wren proved to be just as challenging.
I'm still not exactly satisfied with my recreation efforts for either character, most especially Quinn, but many more playthroughs are no doubt in my future where I can keep trying to perfect his look. I know I'm not alone when it comes to my struggles trying to recapture my Inquisitor all these years later in the new character creation suite, but with the community constantly giving out helpful tips – such as a way to bring your previous custom Inquisitor to a new playthrough instead of starting over from scratch - I hope I'll one day land on a Quinn that feels just right. Regardless of the challenge, I've loved having the opportunity to reunite with a character I made 10 years ago. In many ways, it's like meeting with an old friend... even if they do look a little different now.
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