The "Dragon Age II" Story [2] Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Hanged Man

The Hanged Man was an inn where Varric and Isabela could be found when not adventuring with Hawke. When Hawke had to meet people discretely, or to deal with mercenaries, the Hanged Man was often used.

The Blooming Rose was a high class brothel in Hightown's Red Lantern District (an obvious reference to Amsterdam's real life Red Light District).

The Pearl was a brothel in Denerim, in "Dragon Age: Origins".

Answer: After the Deep Roads expedition

Hawke's mother was formerly a noble in Kirkwall. She abandoned that life, though, to marry an apostate mage and live a simple life in Ferelden. Her brother, Gamlin, inherited the estate, and then managed to lose it and the family fortune on gambling and personal pursuits. When Leandre found out what Gamlin had done, she was mortified.

Hawke managed to earn enough money from the Deep Roads expedition to reacquire the estate in Hightown, though Gamlin was not invited to live there.

Answer: Saemus Dumar, the Viscount's son

In most of Thedas, including Kirkwall, the dominant religious institution was the Andrastrian Chantry. Some members of the faith were peaceful towards, and accepting of other religions, but many were not.

Kirkwall, like all the city states, had its political troubles. The Viscount's influence in the city became jeopardized when his son converted to the Qun. The Qunari were known for being ruthless, strict in their code, and having values completely alien to those of the Chantry.

Saemus initially wanted to protect the Qunari near Kirkwall, and eventually converted himself. While this raised the political tension in Kirkwall, he never stopped loving his father, and his father never stopped loving him.

Answer: Leandre, Hawke's mother

During Act I and Act II, Hawke slowly uncovered the mystery of the disturbing White Lily serial killer.

The killer's name was Quentin. He was a very powerful apostate, and able to use blood magic. Quentin was distraught by the loss of his wife, and sought to reconstruct her from familiar looking parts of other women. When he had finally assembled replica of his wife' corpse, he used blood magic to animate it. Leandre, Hawke's mother, was taken because she had the correct "face" Quentin was looking for.

Hawke killed Quentin and the demons he summoned to help him. With his magic gone, the life in the corpse started to fade. With the corpse having Leandre's head, she was able to say one final farewell to her child before she died.

This was possibly one of the darkest moments in "Dragon Age II". Hawke's father had died before the game started. One of Hawke's siblings died in Ferelden, and the other at this point was either also dead, or taken away. With Leandre's death, Hawke had nearly no family left.

Answer: A sacred text

The Qunari had a sacred text in their religion, the Tome of Koslun. It was taken by the Orlesians during an Exalted March, but they agreed to return it as part of the peace accords. The Arishok was sent to retrieve the tome, but a thief stole it first.

The Qunari chased the thief by sea, into a storm, where all their ships were destroyed. The tome disappeared into the nearby city of Kirkwall, along with the thief. Kirkwall granted the Qunari a place to stay until they had recovered and were able to leave, except the Qunari did not leave.

They could not leave without the tome. Tensions grew between the Qunari and the other citizens of Kirkwall for three years, until the Arishok could no longer tolerate the city, and attacked.

Answer: Meredith Stannard, the Knight-Commander of the Templars

The Arishok murdered the Viscount during his attack, leaving a power vacuum. Meredith, the power-hungry and ambitious Knight-Commander of the Templers, stepped in and declared a state of martial law. She promised to hold new elections for the Viscount soon, but after three years, people had stopped believing her.

She used the growing resistance from the mages as an excuse for her extended tenure.

Answer: The Chantry

During Anders' personal quest, he asked Hawke to help him acquire Sela Petrae and Drakestone. Drake's were known for being rather fiery, and Anders described Sela Petrae as "concentrated manure and urine." Those who understand chemistry at this point might have had warning bells go off. Urine is how many animals, including humans, remove nitrogenous waste. Nitrogen containing compounds are also very common in explosives (TNT, nitroglycerine, ammonium nitrate, etc.).

Justice wanted to destroy what it saw as the symbol of mage oppression: the Chantry as a whole, and the Templars as their military arm. Justice was frustrated by a lack of progress on the mage issue, and decided to force everyone to take a side a fight, by destroying the Kirkwall Chantry. Ironically, tragically, the Devine Mother in Kirkwall was sympathetic to the mages. She advocated peace, moderation, and diplomacy. She refused to take sides, and tried to keep the calm. With her dead, and the religious institution blatantly attacked by an apostate, there were suddenly no more neutral parties, and the final fight began in Kirkwall.

Answer: Meredith Stannard, the Knight-Commander of the Templars

Lyrium was used by mages to improve their ability to perform magic. It was also sought after by the Templars to boost their magic resistance, to help them better fight mages. Bartrand ended up selling the red lyrium idol to Knight-Commander Meridith, which she had infused into a sword.

The red lyrium gave her great power to fight the mages and their supporters, but it also corrupted her. She became more fanatical, and terrified even those under her command. Eventually the power stored in the lyrium was too strong for her, and heated her into molten slag.

Answer: The Templars and Mages

Kirkwall was a city with many diverse groups of people all living in it. There were the nobles who did not like to mix with the lower classes. The elves were almost universally disliked by the other species, and lived in particular poverty. Nobody trusted the Dalish elves living nearby. The Qunari had religious and philosophical differences with nearly every other group in Kirkwall. The city guard and the Templars vied for legal jurisdiction. The Chantry tried to keep a peace while maintaining its influence. And lastly, and most importantly, the mages were becoming frustrated with their increasingly oppressive overseers, the Templars.

Normal mages under normal conditions in Mage Circles led confined, but manageable lives. The Templars in Kirkwall, however, were particularly zealous. The Knight-Commander used every excuse she could to increase the influence and presence of the Templars, while further subjugating the mages. As the mages were oppressed, they rebelled, and the Templars just used the rebellions as reason to further oppress those still in the Circle. The Knight Commander in particular hated mages, and was trying to coerce a reaction out of them, just so she would have a legal excuse to destroy them all.

She finally got her wish at the end of Act III, when Anders, an apostate, destroyed the Kirkwall Chantry.

Answer: Defeating the Qunari Arishok

Hawke earned the title of Champion at the end of Act II, after solving the Qunari situation. The tensions between the Qunari and the rest of Kirkwall grew to a boil at the end of Act II. The Qunari could not stand the corruption in Kirkwall, and were not able to leave.

The only course left to the Arishok was to cleanse Kirkwall of its corruption. He assaulted the Viscount's Keep, and executed Viscount Dumar. Hawke had to remove the Qunari, either through diplomacy or force. Either way, Kirkwall was freed of the Qunari threat. Meredith was able to assume the Viscount's duties, gaining even more political power, setting the stage for Act III.