The Shattered War
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A Standalone Adventure for Dragon Age: Origins

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The threat of the blight may be over, but peace is never a lasting prospect in Thedas. The Frostback Mountains are not far from the Deep Roads, making the darkspawn a constant threat in the minds of the hardy folk who live there. Fereldans, Orlesians and others live out their lives in these Mountains in an uneasy truce, and the smallest happenings could tip the threat of conflict into gruesome bloodshed.

You are a member of a small military force sent to investigate rumours of darkspawn incursions, but this remote and dangerous landscape is home to more surprises than most care to admit. The small output at Fort Velen represents a small banner of order near three towns with problems of their own. On the border between Ferelden and Orlais, hardship is not a threat, it is a way of life.

You will make decisions that will save or destroy lives, making allies or enemies, and deciding who might live or die. Your choices will shape the lives of those who live here and beyond.

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The Shattered War is a full standalone adventure for Dragon Age: Origins set after its events. While this adventure does make some reference to events within the original game, and you will benefit from having the context of that story and the background of the setting, this is NOT a continuation of the story of the Grey Warden. You will create an entirely new hero for this adventure who will start at level 9. This was deliberate choice to provide players with more combat flexibility and to represent the fact that the player's character is somewhat accomplished even at the start of the adventure.

Key Features:

* A standalone adventure set after the events of Origins offering over 10 hours of gameplay
* New protagonist and backgrounds
* Three all new party members
* Difficult decisions affect the outcome of the adventure, and mean it is impossible to experience all the game has to offer in a single playthrough
* Voice acting for almost all characters in the adventure, resulting in over 3600 lines of voiced dialogue
* Over 30 entirely new hand-made areas to explore, including forests, villages, rocky mountains, snow covered peaks and more
* Different endings based on your interactions with party members, major story choices, sidequests and even your character class... resulting in millions of variations
* New combat scenarios, enemy encounters and new items to help you deal with them!
* A lore friendly experience designed to fit seamlessly with the Dragon Age setting
* Optional puzzles that reward exploration, thinking, experimentation and attention to detail

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Getting started:

* Download the zip file for the mod.
* Unzip the zip file to extract the .dazip. Nexusmods will not allow a .dazip file, so this is unfortunately a necessary step. Please delete the original .zip file after extracting the .dazip file.
* Install the mod from the .dazip file using daupdater.exe Instructions on mod installation can be found here: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Using_Dragon_Age_Mods_for_Dummies
* After installing the mod, select "Other Campaigns" then select "The Shattered War". This will take you to the character creation screen.
* If the mod does not appear under "Other Campaigns", go to "Downloadable Content", then "Installed Content" and make sure "The Shattered War" is ticked on this screen.
* Do not use the "Quick Play" button during character creation. As your character is designed to start at a higher level, this will leave you with skill, ability and character points unassigned and thus lost forever.


Known Issues:
* Your party members will not gain experience points until you have the ability to choose your party members.
* Sometimes a party member knocked unconscious in combat will not get up even after you have defeated all nearby enemies. This is not a reliably reproducible issue. If you have the console enabled, open it and type "runscript zz_fix_party" (without quotes), which will resurrect the fallen party member(s) and end combat mode. If not, you may need to restore your latest save.

The below may be fixed at a later date if I am able to obtain assistance in dealing with them:
* Not all characters within the adventure are voiced. While the vast majority are voiced, there are a small number who are not. Please set the "subtitles" setting to either "Conversations only" or "Conversation and ambient dialogue" in order to make sure you see all dialogue within the game.
* There are certain segments where you might be expecting animations/cutscenes (e.g. romance scenes) - these were not included in order to get the mod released and also because I found I could not animate these to an appropriate level of quality.
* Why is there a party picker when there are only 3 party members? There were originally 4 planned party members - Keldrin was meant to be the fourth, but due to being unable to obtain a voice actor for him, he was not included as a party member. He still possesses a lot of dialogue (and romance subplot), but I chose not to make him a complete party member.


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Credits

VO Cast
Taraz - Andrew "thedanman" Chung

Fialeth
Mizura

Saraali
Jeni Dean

Takethran
Randall Fitzgerald

Alys
Dolidh Young

Esmerande
Viridiane

Farouk
Robert S Benjamin

Norvac
Kevin Powe

Remiel
George R Powell


Additional VO - In alphabetical order:

Adriana Petersen - Peta
Beaver Man (blog.beaverman.net/p/blog-page_14.html) - additional voices
Benjamin Kleman - Garran
Caitlin Buckley (caitlinva.wordpress.com) - additional voices
Chris Perks - Peljoh
DraculaCronqvist - Imralen
finalcrystine - Viktoria, Indeera, Elsi
Goldflareon - Joanne, additional voices
Guit Archon - Ryzil, additional voices
James Beagon - Karan
Joseph Dunkerly - additional voices
Roman Ewert aka KingEtzel - additional voices
MamaSnake - dying scout, survivor
Mauri "Darkblade" Majanoja - Kyintan, Quartermaster
Morgenstern - Merrin
MugetsuMiyizaki (James Duffy) - Zan, additional voices
Nial Prince - Warrior
Nitro - Aaderin, Naral, additional voices
Patrick L Dunn - Garoth
Popobutter - Tavor
River Kanoff (RiverKanoff.com) - Anrik, Henrik
Sarah Carol Dawe - Sara, Revered Mother
Scott Oka - Anjou
Sousa aka Aykerusey - Sami, Jala
Viridiane - Desire demon
William T. Sopp - Dal

AmstradHero - Caedron, Scout, Keldrin, additional voices

Additional Credits
Semper- : for providing a base level for Torc's Pass
WeriKK / Peter Kovacs : Source code from the respecialization mod
Dragon Age Inquisition : Some screenshots used as the basis for slideshow images

Except for where noted above, all writing, scripting, level design, and all other content by AmstradHero



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If you would like to use this mod or any part of it in your project, please get in touch with me. I'll almost certainly be happy to provide my permission for you to use it, but I'd just like to know where it is being used and that you credit me appropriately.