Interesting Symbolism in Dragon Age Origins

Hello, been a while since I posted or created a thread. I hit search to see if any topics like this had been created, but found none. So sorry if I missed a previous thread on the topic.

Anyways, I am a big fan of the game Dragon Age Origins, and have played through several times. It is an incredibly rich, complex fantasy setting, chock full of hidden "easter eggs". The ones that caught my eye, however, seem to be conspiracy related.

First, there is a quest on the Denerim Chanter's board, where you have to find a missing sextant for a member of the "Free Sailors" organization. This item, found in the alienage, is displayed with a sextant icon that is identical to the Freemason compass/sextant symbol. This icon is used again as a gift for Nathaniel in Awakenings.

Another interesting Easter Egg: The "Developer's Graveyard", viewable after one completes the Sacred Ashes Quest and returns to the village of Haven. Behind the first building on your right, in the village, is the "developers graveyard" which is full of headstones with a collection of interesting and amusing epitaphs of everything, from plot and design ideas that never made it into the game, to humorous hints of other things the developers tried and failed.

There is one headstone, however, that is very curious. Click on it, and all it reads is "Building 7". As a former proponent of 9/11 conspiracies, this reference did not escape me. There is only one thing I think of when I think of the name "Building 7". And that's the enigmatic WTC 7, which collapsed under mysterious cirumstances on 9/11.

There is also many other references to secret societies (the templar order and their history was loosly based on a combo of the real life Knights Templar and the Inquisition), but these two CT references were the ones I remembered best.

Naturally, I messaged one of the developers on the Bioware forums about this, as i was interested to find out if the development team also had an interest in conspiracy theories. The developer in question replied that yes, there were a couple of guys on the Dragon Age developer's crew that were indeed very interested in certain conspiracy theories, and liked to slip veiled references to their favorite CTs in the game. maddenly, he declined to name which ones. unfortunate, as I would have loved to discuss them, but I understood why. he also said that one of the developers is a frequent lurker here on ATS.

Anyways, I thought I'd share this to see if anyone else here on ATS, who had played the game, noticed these, or noticed other references to secret societies or CTs. I will dig through my old folders to find screenshots of the things in question.

Here, found the screenshots. First is the developer's graveyard with the Building 7 gravestone:




And here is the image of nathaniel's gift, called the bronze sextant:




And here's a link to the image of the "free Sailor's Sextant, a quest item:

Game banshee image

i play dragon age origins alot also, its fun, a bit too short imo, needs much larger storyline, and i must say those bastards are ripping you off so much with dlc (download content), as such i have not gotten to the developers graveyard yet, think about it though, all the dlc which add gameplay is content already burned to the disc, so you already own the gameplay, your just not given permission to play those parts till you pay for the dlc, so in my opinion this is getting someone to purchase the same product over and over and over,

add up all the prices for download content available on the psn right now for dragon age origins and you come to
$90.92
when the game came out it cost me
$60.

so to play every bit of content burned onto that $60 purchase i must also pay $90.92 making the grand total cost for the contents on that disc
$150.92

theres 3 dlc's i didnt include since it isnt gameplay it is items in the game but those included the total price is
$157.89


and who knows if they have even released all the dlc's yet,

and that is not even considering dragon age 2!!!!! ^ all that is only part one!!!

you know damn well if that game sat on a store shelve with a price of $157.89 per disc they would not have sold very many, but thats what they get outta you here, and imo it is an act of deception the method they get it,

they would probably profit just fine with a price tag of 50$ per game it isnt that expensive to create a video game at all the largest cost is the wages of the employee's!!

rant over




thx for pointing those things out op, i know i have done that pendant mission many times and never noticed because i didnt even go sorting through the inventory to analyze the pendant so i never noticed the image associated with it in the inv, of course this teaches me i ought to look closer more often

btw, now that i know what you have told in this thread op, it gives me some second thoughts to this thread about the norway killer


www.abovetopsecret.com...


hmmmmmmmmmmm

I don't mean to be a debbie downer but there is "magic" in the game and all the funny occult symbols that come with it. You find these symbols in a games where magic is used. So you might as well say "Interesting Symbolism in x game" . This phenomena is not new and is in many many games. Symbols are there to make the game look cool because the symbols are arcane.

reply to post by pryingopen3rdeye


Ugh, don't get me started on Bioware ripping people off via DLC. I'll avoid my own rant to stay on topic.

As far as Anders the mage terrorist vs. Anders the real Norwiegan one, I see that as a very creepy, yet tragic, coincidence. An eiree case of art either imitating, or predicting, life.

Another obvious case of secret society symbolism in the game, is the name of the Grey Warden headquarters, Weisshaupt fortress, a possible reference to Adam Weisshaupt. The Grey Wardens themselves are a pretty weird, rather sinister secret society that people tend to be suspicious of.

reply to post by fordrew


I am aware of this. This is a conspiracy site, the secret society subsection, which is a place to discuss such things.

I am not saying Bioware is part of some grand conspiracy. Only pointing out examples in a popular RPG where common subjects of conspiracy theory have been integrated into the game world.

And of course, building 7 has nothing to do with magic or the arcane, either, but was an interesting reference to a very controversial, and hotly debated, 9/11 conspiracy.



And I just screwed up my main edit, my images aren't showing, and I gotta wait another 4 hours to fix it.

reply to post by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf


the grey wardens knowledge with the mage (morrigan) knowledge, allow you the choice to sacrifice yourself to save the kingdom or sacrifice an innocent life (morrigans child)

this kinda seems a vague similarity to the cremation of care ritual which occurs annually at the bohemian grove as a ritual dating back to Babylonian times,

they sacrifice a child yearly to drive off a demon they named 'care'

i dont really think there is such thing as coincedence, 'coincedence' is only a word to state the two incidents are related through means beyond understanding,

So that's why the sequel was so lame. They are covering the tracks!!
If you want interesting symbolism and ATS-influenced game, go for Deus Ex revolution.