There are a few mods that change or modify the Human Noble's starting equipment. But they can be rather extensive, like Human Noble Background Immersion, or they change clothing. I don't mind the Cousland wearing armour by default, but I think a few tweaks regarding weaponry won't hurt.

By the lore, we can assume with confidence that the warrior Cousland was taught to fight with sword and shield as well as with greatsword, as befits a noble knight. That's why I'm adding the basic greatsword (Tier 1) so that a player who wants to use this kind of arms, can do it from the start. 

Another thing is the default shield - it's certainly too modest for a Cousland noble. Added the Cousland Guard Shield (Tier 1), it doesn't break balance but is more immersive. 

In the vanilla cutscene, the player's character comes into the great hall and participates in the conversation with weapons on their back. I think it's not immersive, because of all people in the dialogue, only Duncan has his weapons, because he's a guest (Howe is one too, but he's a close friend of Bryce) - the Cousland is at home, so there's no need to have the weapons displayed at the very beginning. The weapons are in the inventory and wait for the player to equip them after the conversation. 

Incompatible with any mod that changes the same file or modifies the starting equipment extensively.

1.1 - adds a unique Studded Leather armour from the Warden's Keep DLC as starting armour for the warrior class. By default, the items have identical stats to the set from the main campaign, but the look is distinctive.

I fixed the Warden's Keep studded leather gloves' icon - it used a basic icon from the main campaign, as opposed to the chestpiece and boots, which use the DLC icons. What's more, now the Studded Leather set is going to match the description by giving +2 to Armor if all three pieces are worn. 

1.2 - added a compatiblity of sorts for users of Lore Friendly Cousland Guard Shield, which fixes the heraldry of the Cousland Guard Shield and replaces it with the Highever seal as in the item's description. It would make our character also display that heraldry though. That's why I made the player's Guard Shield unique and with the Cousland seal on it. 

The vanilla small shield, which remains in case of using the "Greatsword" version of the mod, is also unique now and bears the Cousland wreath on it instead of being just a generic small shield. 


Installation:

Drop it into Documents/Bioware/Dragon Age/packages/core/override

Inside the "Cousland Starting Weapons Tweak" you'll have two folders: keep one you need and remove the other.

"Better Starting Shield" replaces the default shield with the Cousland Guard one, but doesn't contain a greatsword - it's more vanilla this way, first, one can find a greatsword later, second, if you use this folder, I take it you're going to use sword and shield at this point. 

"Greatsword in Inventory" adds the basic greatsword for the player to equip after the beginning conversation. Doesn't change the vanilla shield, because if you use this option, you're inclined to use the two handed weapon anyway.

"A Rogue's Shortbow" - on @Crypto217's request, a rogue version of the file. The daggers aren't equipped during the opening scenes and additionally, a shortbow was added to the second weapon slot - for the players who want to start as a ranged rogue.


Uninstallation:

Remove the "Cousland Starting..." folder from the override