Key Takeaways
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard introduces liches to the lore.
- However, like other fantasy tropes, they work very differently from how they do in Dungeons & Dragons.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard adds to the lore of Thedas, finally introducing a fantasy concept that it has avoided so far. In The Veilguard, it’s confirmed that liches exist, and we even get to grapple with the issue of a select few prolonging their lives through unnatural means.
Spoiler warning for Dragon Age: The VeilguardOne of the factions in The Veilguard, the Mourn Watchers, are revealed to be able to make members of their order liches. However, this isn’t as nefarious as it sounds, as candidates for lichdom have to prove themselves worthy of the process.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard Sets Up Liches, But They Work Differently Than They Do In Dungeons & Dragons
Getting into more specific spoilers here – one of our companions, Emmrich, is being considered to be made a lich, which would extend his life. Without delving too much further, this is what his personal quest centres around. This plotline also establishes that evil liches do exist, but this is only when the process isn’t done properly and they try and cheat their way through it.
The closest we got to anything remotely lich-y before this was Avernus, a character in the Dragon Age: Origins DLC, Warden’s Keep. The only explanation we got for his long life was blood magic though, and that was only to stop his body from decaying. The Veilguard gives us a more detailed explanation of how this works and sets it up as something people can earn.
Dragon Age has always inverted common fantasy tropes, so it’s unsurprising to see that continue here. From the first game, mages have been mostly locked up, rather than able to sling spells freely, and elves have been oppressed and forced to live in poverty, rather than living the long, elegant lives we often see in other media. Similarly, The Veilguard sets up that evil liches in Thedas are the exception, rather than the rule that they are in Dungeons & Dragons.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is out now, available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.