Please donate to Sten’s Skull Cancer Fund
September 13, 2010
12:00 am
I have to say, I’m not a fan of Bioware’s Horned Qunari retcon for the upcoming Dragon Age 2. It’s not that the design is bad so much as horribly generic, I look at Sten and think “Hey, that’s a pretty original and distinct looking character”. When I see these new guys I don’t know if I’m looking at a Disney Gargoyle or a Legacy of Kain vampire or a warcraft draenei or what.
FIRST.
Oh hey I see you, or the site, fixed the HTML.
HERP DERP BEING FIRST VALIDATES MY EXIESTENCE.
He (She?) is the site programmer. It’s a bit of a joke.
Vorked is ALL MAN.
We want proof of that…
In a kilt, please!
Wow look at that. There must be SOME KIND OF GENIUS behind the running and maintaining of this website.
Hey Vorked, you know who it is?
CRREEEEEED!
… I’m sorry. It had to be done.
Nah, he’s too busy hiding baneblades in buildings and warlords in trees’
*insert witty joke about the purple blob*
*slaps knee and laughs*
*types witty response comment*
*smacks seven kinds of hell out of generic responses!*
I laffted!
At the risk of being branded too geeky for my own good, this Qunari thing is the Klingon issue all over again. You’d think they’d learn from the problems that caused.
Independently, I look at the final panel and I see places to mount rocket launchers.
Nothing wrong with being TOO geeky. If there weren’t too geeky, you wouldn’t have us.
Crom bless you.
Crom blesses no one. He is indifferent to the fate of human beings. Blasphemy.
Grant me one request: grant me
revengebean dip! And if you do not listen, then to hell with you!Who is talking about human beings here?
Less is more man, less is more. Besides, they look like Tieflings from D&D.
Oh wow I never noticed that until you pointed it out.
I am slow.
I was JUST about to say that…
I thought thats what they were at first…
Personally I’m not too mad at it. Something about babes with horns…
Seconded, I was gonna say that too. Kinda like the also horribly generic 4e homogenized version.
Well, that’s okay, because all I see, with the females at least, is Draenei from World of Warcraft. Minus hooves and tentacles.
Lol, that is exactly what I was thinking when I first saw the female Qunari concept art.
When I first saw the concept art for the male Qunari I facepalmed pretty hard and then I saw the trailer and just felt like planting my face into the wall.
The one in the trailer looked, at some points, like he was half-braindead or something.
Not gonna lie – I like the 2nd and 3rd panels’ horn designs.
I would’ve loved to see a “Loki’s helmet” variant.
Oh damn you are right.
Why am I not noticing these until someone ELSE has to point it out for me?
Just lucky I guess.
*Cue geeky observation that Vorked sees after it’s pointed out.*
I think the new Qunari design is only for special snowflake Qunari and doesn’t apply to all of them. At least I think I read that somewhere on the forums for DA2, then again maybe thats just what people were speculating/hoping.
I dunno, according to what I saw and what’s up on the wiki, hornless Qunari like Sten are the special snowflake ones.
“In Dragon Age 2, it is revealed that most qunari have horns. Some are born without them, but it is not considered a defect—on the contrary, those born without horns are considered special, as they are meant for a special role in qunari society such as a Ben-Hassrath or an envoy to the other races.”
The horns do make sense, after a fashion. The darkspawn Trolls are born from Qurani broodmothers, and have horns. They do leave an out for Sten, but I find the notion of him being special to be patronizing. I can’t see the Qun putting stock in a physical quirk. Also, the 3D model’s horns were excessive.
I swear, if they make it so that Qun can’t wear helms in the next game, I’m gonna be pissed.
If they put a Qunari on my team that looks like Coldstone from Gargoyles, I’m gonna be pissed.
I honestly have no more trouble believing that a DA:O Qunari as-is could spawn trolls than I do picturing a DA:O elf turning into one of those Banshee-wraith-shriek-whatever things.
He just bashes it onto his head. have stress marks from the punctured holes in it. :p
Would be cooler if they maintained if you gave the hat to someone else.
*is talking out of ass*
Extreme necro: They can’t wear helms, but at least they get heavy metal face paint that’s so poisonous it’d kill any of the other races?
Sten is already a special snowflake – cookies and bunnies!
I honestly thought the horned dude in the DA2 trailer was a demon of sorts, like the new Darkspawn of DA2.
Qunaris with horns, wtf xD
Last panel looks as if Sten has gotten some squid-virus/cancer. Tentacles. Tentacles everywhere :P
I also thought it was a new type of Darkspawn but if it’s a Qunari and it kills the king then maybe Sten’s prophecy has come true and the Qunari are invading Ferelden (as said at the end of the campaign IIRC).
Hopefully Sten comes and seeks Hawke out on the battlefield, if he’s not going to for the warden. It’d be nice to see some cameos, or even a glimpse of out DA1 wardens (and subsequent love interests) somewhere.
I hope Sten won’t be killing the king..
ALISTAAIR! T_T
oh no not that now….,hes killed by toasty
1. The wiki is wrong.
2. to BMO and Deihjan. It doesn’t take place in Ferelden, but the free marches. The guy the Qunari kills is the Viscount of Kirkwall
The lead writer, David Gaider has been quoted saying “Not all qunari have horns, some are born without them, but it has never been considered a defect. Instead the mark is considered special, indicating one who is clearly meant for a special role in their society”.
Of course, the senior artist pretty much flat out says it’s a tacked-on change by adding that “Art wanted to create more space between the races so we changed the way the qunari looked”.
And in addition to that, the “no horns are special” part doesn’t really hold water, as none of the many enemy quanari you fight have them. So it’s a rare special feature shared by everyone. Yeah, that’s some lazy retconning.
On an unrelated note, I want a triforce mug like that, except blue
I like to think he’s being a dick and stole it from Ganondorf.
G: Commander, have you seen my mug?
Commander: Maybe that kid broke it? Ya know, like yer flower pots? *sip*
ME WANTY!
I sure hope someone in the agency does bonsai work.
“Please donate to Sten’s Skull Cancer fund”
I wonder how many people notice that?
I just couldn’t think of a wittier title at three in the AM
Why are your comics getting uglier? V_V
Because I’ve been spending 15 hours a day, six or seven days a week working on the season finale of Ugly Americans. I just figured people would prefer “ugly comic” to “no comic”, even though skipping a week or two and getting a decent night’s sleep would clearly be the easier option for me.
Don’t listen to the hecklers, we love you (and your comics) just fine.
This.
Ugly comics? It’s much much MUCH prettier than what I can draw.
Agreed, would rather have ugly then nothing. Even though it’s not really ugly. Just hate comics that have gone into the every 15 day routine, it’s like damn it I need my fix now.
i wish I could draw humans like this, though I do draw dragons, horses, and Wolf Link pretty well, You kick my ass at every thing else draw-able. By the way…..HAS ANY ONE NOTICED COMMANDER’S MUG TODAY?!? LEGEND OF ZELDA FORRRRREEEEEEVVVVVVVEEEEEERRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:D
Thanks for taking the time to answer it.
And, just so there aren’t any misunderstandings (this is teh intrawebs and whatnot, so we can’t really see eachother’s facial expressions and stuff), I’m not sarcastic or anything, nor was I trying to put anyone down. It’s just that I’ve just found this comic, and there’s a noticeable change in style (I call it uglier, because that’s how it feels to me; then again, eye of the beholder and all that). No harm meant. If any was done, I apologize. Not that you’d actually benfit much from my apology, since there’s obviously a loyal fanbase, but still.
If you read the comments on them, you’d see me explaining time and time again that the ones that look like this are the result of life circumstances. I shouldn’t have to re-explain every week just because you can’t be bothered to read what I have to say.
Remarks like that are the reason people say webcomic audiences have such a reputation for their entitled attitude. It’s true that there are people who do their comics as a career and owe that quality to the people who are attributing to their livelihood, but I think you’ll find people who do it as a hobby have to balance it around their day jobs are the vast majority. And knowing that, I would like to think you can understand why it’s grating to constantly hear people complain about how “lazy” or “slow” I must be because I only make one comic a week, or how my stuff is getting “uglier” when I bust my ass to get out an update on time at the end of an 80 hour work week.
I leave my house around 8 in the morning, I commute to work for an hour, stay there until anywhere between 9 and midnight, commute the hour back home, chip at freelance, try to work on comics, and usually end up passing out around three or four so I can get a couple hours of sleep and do it all over again. I usually do that six or seven days a week. Then after that I can almost always count on one of the first comments I get being a complaint about how the free comic I made this week isn’t good enough. True, people are totally within their rights to decide they don’t like it and complain, but to say something like that the week after I said that we were in the final two weeks of crunch time on the cartoon I work on comes across as a little dickish.
look at the bright side, the flames of rage that possess your soul upon each waking Monday morn feed your desires for slaughter and pillage. Conan approves.
Also, Conan is touched by the spirit of the artist in each work, not the fit and finish; if he were not, Conan would always have chosen the pretty but weak sword over the ugly but strong blade of enemie’s demise! Go forth and do battle with the paper in the NAME OF CROM AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH
Always.
Conan does not believe you! Conan demands your war face! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH
September 2010 was a vicious time indeed.
I hope you’re not still doing such insane hours.
I personally like the non shadedness a bit.
I’m sure it’s been said a million times on the internet before, but…
It’s rude to complain about things you get for free.
No no no. Not uglier by any means! Only Manlier! Also crap hadn’t kept up with the DAO site. Glad this was broken to me in a manner I could accept rather than the forum rants. XP
Naw, I know they don’t look nearly as nice as the ones I can do when I get a full weekend to sit down and polish them, but sometimes the only way I’m going to get a comic on time is to do it straight to flash, sitting crosslegged on a friend’s floor. That’s not really a venue for quality.
Wow, rude. It’s not like she has a life and a job and a lot of other things to do besides a webcomic. Just be glad she updated on time.
PS My last comment was @Some Random Dude. Something went wrong along the “clicking reply” lines.
Oh boy, Draeneis on Dragon Age…
Just wait till all the females pop up half-naked in the nearest Goldshiresque town and dance around for money and sex-emotes
AHA! I’m not the only one that thought about Draenei, hahaha. But no, really. I’m waiting for that very thing to happen. I suppose we should be thankful this isn’t really an MMO.
I was half expecting fruit to start growing from his horns at the end, haha XD
And now that you mentioned that, I’m starting to expect birds to start roosting.
reminds me of that Dr. Seuss story about the bird that wanted more feathers, so she kept eating more and more berries.
you should do hellboy :D and someone from transformers :D not that you have to, but it would be awesome if you did.
He should have a cameo of the Goon, from well… “The Goon”. That bugger is manly as all git outta town.
The horns started looking like tentacles to me near the end, I was expecting a school girl to toss herself onto them.
I have to say it you have single handily made Mondays a thousand times better with this comic.
Not to nitpick too much, but the Qunari were always supposed to have horns. I’m not sure why Sten didn’t.
I dunno, some interview I saw with an art guy on the game read very much like “well… we never said they didn’t have horns…” They were saying the addition of horns was supposed to make the races easier to tell apart. If they were “always supposed to” but there was no mention or reference to it anywhere in the first game, that’s kind of shamefully poor planning on their part.
I agree that it’s not really stretching it to have that kind of setup where some have horns and some don’t, but I do also agree that they should have made that clear from the start. It makes any retcon seem like a big “Ooops, we messed up there, but it’s all better now… Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
I don’t know why they feel the need to make the races differ more, i liked the fact that Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Qunari all had the same basic body plan. It made more sense than say four armed snake people or giant wooly yak men.
I saw this, I immediately thought of the new Head & Shoulders commercial with Troy Polamalu.
My fault for not playing DA I guess.
“Didn’t you?” “No.” “Didn’t you.” “Yes.”
same here lol ^_^
So do this mean that Keith David will be voicing a Qunari in DA2?
That would actually please me since I very much like the man’s work.
THIS.
Also, is it wrong that I feel ambivalent to the horned qunari? Yes, it’s annoying that they retconned their image just so that the art department could feel the races were more distinct… But now it makes more sense that the ogres have horns; back before the retcon, it felt weird that darkspawn born from a qunari broodmother would have huge horns when their progenitor race never showed them.
Elves make Shrieks even though they don’t generally look like Predator-faced pugwolves.
Those new designs look like Dranei from WOW.
I looked at the last panel, and couldn’t figure out why I kept thinking ‘fractals?’
Took me about 5 minutes.
At the risk of being SO geeky – If I read things right, the horned Qunari is a new convention. According to DA2, if a Qunari is born with horns, then they are usually ambassadors… otherwise they are thought to be “meant for something special”.
>> http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/07/28/a-look-at-the-qunari-evolved.aspx <<
The Qunari without horns are the odd ones out
From your link; “Not all qunari have horns,” says Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider. “Some are born without them, but it has never been considered a defect. Instead the mark is considered special, indicating one who is clearly meant for a special role in their society—as a Ben-Hassrath who enforces religious law or as an envoy to other races.”
WOOPS yes, I failed at proof-reading XD sorry about that. Awesome comic, btw. Still makes me laugh if I remember it later in the day :D
Triforce cup FTW !
Fuck yeah.
WTH? How do they plan to retcon that?
Just say “Well, we never said the other Qunari didn’t have them. Oh, and all those other ones you saw removed theirs.”
Other Quanari? Damn I’m Really lazy when it comes to side quests. At least it did away with that whole giant monster thing that bum was talking about. I mean i wouldn’t call Shaq a giant monster thing.
There were a few places where you fought Qunari mercenaries, an the expansion has a Qunari merchant who’s basically chubby bald Sten.
Reminds me of Scary Movie 3
This was one of my issues with WoW. Somehow, obtaining power makes you grow horns/spikes for shits and giggles; see Illidan. Don’t even get me started on troll tusks/tauren horns either, especially when they poke out of helmets at weird angles.
Honestly, I can explain away Tauren and Trolls cutting holes in helmets to make them fit. Hell, my huntress has to cut up every pair of gloves and gauntlets she gets to get them down to three fingers. What kills me is when blood elves ears and *eyebrows* manage to break through helms.
Blood Elf eyebrows are made from steel. True fact.
It’s probably all those cookies. They’re unhealthy, you know.
This comic makes me think of that girl from Uzumaki who had that crazy hair.
But that’s.. stone cold retarded. The retcon, I mean. Since you see, what, thirty-odd Qunari in Dragon Age, most of whom are bald, and none of whom have horns or any visible sign that they ever had horns, then why in the name of love are they saying that the majority do? I mean, if they want horned Qunari, why not just say that the horned ones are the rare and special snowflakes?
Aaagh, I really shouldn’t care it this much, but it’s a really clumsy retcon. I mean, the Qunari are already pretty distinct, what with them being about seven feet tall.
Also, am I alone in being annoyed that female Qunari seem to be stereotypical fantasy babes, and not burly washerwoman types?
I think that may be just me.
Oh no, believe me, my friends and I have discussed this at length.
The burly Qunari women are treasured as great beauties, and strong bearers of children. As such, they are kept at home, protected behind strong barriers.
The skinny, ugly ones are advised to go out into the world in hopes that they may not taint the bloodlines in the racial homelands.
Which DLC do the Qurani show up in? I’ve really got to see more of them. (before things get weird)
There are a whole bunch of Qunari mercenaries in the game itself, and they’re all conspicuously bald, with no scarring where removed horns would be. There are also Sten’s brothers in his hallucination in the mage’s tower, and there is an ex-Qunari merchant in Awakenings.
My Vote goes for Draenei.
I Think of Tieflings looking at them, too.
BioWare, I try to love you baby, but you keep doing things that make me angry. It’s your fault I hit you.
D8 Domestic abuse! Domestic abuse!
Why you gotta hate? Some people communicate with words, I communicate with fists!
D8 I don’t speak fisticuffs!
Well you’re about to learn… *cracks knuckles* >:D
D8 GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME!
Why do the women look rather warrior-esque? Or like they could easily become bikini-clad Xena worshippers? Didn’t Sten say they could only be artisans, merchants and the like? Also, why does the male get nasty skin and skoliosis when the female has a flawless form? Lame.
Also, the females don’t seem to have their horns coming out of a freakish Neanderthal eyebrow ridge. The Qunari were awesome enough. Leave em alone, Bioware.
The women are also the administrators who manage their society.
You thought they looked like Kain too? XD I was like, “Oh! They be releasing a new Raziel g-…Wut? õ_õ”
If only…
Since I lost all interest in Dragon Age a while ago I thought this was just a joke, or hyperbole, but then I clicked that link. And, well, what the fuck? That is a massive disappointment. Sten was a pretty cool dude, he looked like a pretty cool dude and that image is just a bag of blah that could be anything from a thousand different properties.
Oh well, the comic made me laugh and thus I enjoyed it. Happy times were had.
THANX MICHAEL!! for the link haha it makes me laugh:) it is pretty manly.lol
The lesson we can take from this is that we should be glad Bioware put all their bad ideas into Dragon Age so they don’t stink up Mass Effect
That’s really disappointing. I rather liked the Qunari we saw in the original Dragon Age. As awesome as the new trailer looks (which I looked up immediately after reading this), that makes me quite sad. If they wanted to make the qunari more distinguisable, they should have just upped their oft mentioned size and…I dunno, maybe given them some cool, maori style tatoos? Horns are just so damned commonplace.
On the other hand, it does at least explain why Ogres (which are apparently birthed from Qunari broodmothers) have those big ol’ horns. That’s like giving us a chocolate chip and then stealing our cookie, though.
That cookie + Sten thing was totally inadvertent, by the way. My hunger is affecting my metaphors…
Ok, first off, much love to all your comics.
Second off, isn’t Gannondorf going to be pissed off when he sees that the Commander is drinking from his Triforce mug? Because I would think, even in his reformed state, he would want anything triforce related all to himself… since he can never have the real thing.
He might have lost it in a bet?
I think Commander’s just being a jerk and using one of his mugs :P
Probably. I can see Gannon saying “Curse you, Commander!” while shaking his fist in the air. Then he would pause and mumble, “He better wash that before he gives it back.” :/
Because TRUE MANLINESS does not depend upon mere things, but upon dealing with adversity with equanimity.
Marcus Aurelius said that. Truefax.
What I like about your comics is that even if I don’t get the reference (I’m not a video gamer, so I know next to nothing about DA or any video game really (unless it’s based off a Marvel comic book character)), I still find it amusing.
Thanks for making Mondays one of my favorite days of the week. Ever. Even if it’s a quick comic, I appreciate the effort and time.
No offense, Coelasquid, but I preferred your old art stile.
style*
You could take the time to read what I just said to the last guy who was complaining about what the comic looked like this week, you know.
Because even the manliest of men must work to keep bread on the table. Even if said man is actually a woman.
I like the thought of an “art stile”, a low part of a metaphorical fence that an artist has to jump over to reach the better shading on the other side…
mind = blown
That didn’t seem like a complaint to me.
‘THIS SUCKS’ is a complaint.
‘This could be better’ is not.
That just means it isn’t a rude complaint.
I’ve said time and time again I have a very busy work schedule and the comics will suffer for it. Someone chooses to ignore that and say they want me to draw more like I do when I have a good two days to draw comics, well, sorry, that’s just not physically possible. It’s either quick comic or no comic, I’d prefer people read what I have to say on the matter before they start telling me how I should be doing things.
What I should be doing is focusing on work and not wasting precious potential sleeping time on these, but I draw them because I told people that I would and I don’t want to disappoint them. Apparently I’m disappointing people anyway, so hey, whatever.
You’re not disappointing me! *sniff*
*raises hand* :[ I still admire and respect you. Seriously, if I were in your position, I wouldn’t be able to stay on a one-a-week basis for more than two or three weeks.
I’m with them. Bacon is awesome.
Oh and whatever they said about that one thing.
I can understand the art direction choice. Dragon Age looked all hardcore Lord of the Rings in some areas, and in other areas, just bland. I’m pretty sure most of the deep roads were those cave sets leftover from all the Star Trek shows.
Making elves into something other than small humans and qunari into something other than big humans is a good idea. I, for one, look forward to killing the blood out of these conquering armies of giant horned quasi-taoist ink junkies.
Except they didn’t just turn them into “something else” they turned them into something completely generic and commonplace in the realm of fantasy. Personally, I found seven-foot Turkish tank-elves with white hair and crazy eyes to be a pretty distinct and memorable concept.
On the plus side, at least they didn’t completely wipe out the design for the Qunari who look like Sten.
yeeeaaaaahhhh I’m just worried we aren’t gonna see many of them.
Maybe I’ll skip the Next Dragon Age and just get that Final Fantasy game with the race of mountain Manazons.
Hehe. It’s nice to see some variety…even if this variety is…very different. I got a little tired of seeing Qunari mercenaries who were just bald.
Sten’s still the hottest in my opinion. 8>
At first I wasn’t a fan of the new Qunari designs, but they kind of make sense.
After all, not all Qunari are going to have the horns. It’s just some of them do. Consider it a mutation – mutations are common in any race.
Also, the horns will tie in with the offspring of Qunari Broodmothers – you know, the ogre darkspawn.
So, just thinking about those little things, it makes sense to me…. but Sten’s design is still better. <.<
By the way, the drawings for the new Qunari kind of look like Kratos from God of War and Hell Boy got together and made babies somehow. XD
Except the Qunari with horns are supposed to be the norm and the ones like Sten are the mutations. I dunno, it just feels like a sloppy retcon attached to a generic fantasy creature design.
The only way I would accept the Qunari getting horns is if their horns progressively grew in the same way your comic shows
Pinocchio horns? da fuck?
It feels weird learning about vidya gaem news like this. I haven’t been keeping up with my geek blogs and shit and all of a sudden I don’t get this strip until it’s explained in the text.
I actually sorta like the idea that Qnari have horns. I also like the idea that the Qnari without horns aren’t treated as inferior, but rather as having special purpose (like Sten).
I just think of all the redesigns they could have been given, it’s fairly plain and disappointing. Seems more like “fantasy fans will recognize this” and less “hey, let’s make something unique to us”.
Fuckin awesome, those beans scare the fuck out of me. Still though, eat the hell out of that little dude, Sten.
Oh check it, I commented on the wrong page. Whatever. ALL PAGES RULE
It would’ve been way cooler if the horns were some sort of extreme body modification that the Qunari did to themselves to signify whatever cool warrior stuff they wanted. Then the Ogres would’ve made sense too ’cause the darkspawn twist everything about whatever form they come from. Man that would’ve been awesome. But yeah the chicks are disappointing. I was expecting some Rosie the Riveter type of broads but these things are so boring…
That would actually have been plausible. It sounds extreme, but it’s that was plastic surgery is?
isn’t* Sorry.
Yeah and it seems more of a warrior type thing to do, seeing as tribes of real people do similar things with scarring, tattoos and whathaveyou. They could still have ‘horns’, still be recognized by a fantasy audience, and not come across as a lazy patch up. It would also be a lot easier to explain why NONE the Qunari in DA:O have horns…they just weren’t super cool enough warriors to go through the mod ritual or something. The “My hornz iz pasted onn yeyz ” approach is just so dang lame.
Wait…that thing was a Qunari?
I thought it was some evolved Ogre-esque darkspawn that was the result of the Architect doing his weirdo thing
I support these tentacle-horns.
(Also, reading the comments above, I feel the need to make it known that I love the updates. The style may be different recently, but I don’t think it’s any “better” or “worse.” Just different. The humor that drew me here remains, and the fact that you’re still taking the time to make and post new comics is astounding. Carry on. Or don’t. It’s your site.)
Eh true. We should probably ask ourselves “What matters more to us? ‘Consistent updates’ or ‘high quality’?” I guess for me it’s consistent updates, but even that still shouldn’t be at artist/writer’s expense.
This comic never fails to be the best part of my Monday (or Tuesday, or whatever day of the week it is when I trick myself into thinking it’s Monday so I can come here in hopes of a new comic then re-enjoy the most recent one). My own parenthetical comment has confused me. Great comic.
almost forgot, no tags today?
sorry, just found out what happened.
I hate when that happens.
If the pun is good, I don’t care if its not totally polished. I was just waiting for my fix and were very glad to get it. Thank you!
Also grateful of the knowledge, I didn’t know they’re gona have horns… :( Makes me feel all confused and iggy. :D
Is Sten being Sarcastic or not in that last panel? I find it hard to tell.
Damn, I missed posting on your first comic surpassing 100 comments. Musta felt good, man.
Also, call me slow, but tl;dr all those above comments, I realized The Commander has a triforce on his coffee mug.
Man, quite a few of my comics have more than 100 comments :P
And that’s not his coffee mug…
I’d say dun dun DUNNNNN but I’ve already read the comments.
But I missed the FIRST one to reach that milestone, lol.
Also, O SNAP
I just found this comic a few days ago and went back through them all. These are great! This comic especially makes me feel bad for not getting around to playing the first Dragon Age yet. Since that is the case for me, I’m pro-horn. I’ll play the first one knowing some of them have horns, but for some reason no one will in this game and they’ll never give me a clue as to why we’ll see more with horns later. “Surprise! Horns!”
But Ganondorf doesn’t have a triforce mug, he has a piggy mug. The only time you see him is when he has a pig-mug. Other than that, I approve of the comic, and feel that even if the are suffers the demands of work and other things, at least the spirit of the comic is there and the jokes remain funny. Or as Delta would say *GWAAAAUUUGH!!!* (keep up the funny comics, we support you)
I did think of that, but I figure he’s got a few. Maybe because they keep getting stolen/broken.
CURSE THAT POINTY-EARED KID! (goes to get another mug out of storage)
Qunari were originally meant to have horns. You can see it in early concept art, and with the ogres. The idea was scrapped because they didn’t want to have to make twice as many helmet models to accommodate Sten.
Regardless of what they “meant” to do, they didn’t do it and now they’re trying to undo what they established with a sloppy retcon that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
The commander stole the mug… bastard
lol, speaking of Draeneis, havent you ever considered one of the Warcraft characters in yer comic?
I mean… they are born with muscles… specially orcs XD
Whew! I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who was confused. When I found out that horned dude in the DA 2 Trailer was a Quinari all I could think was “Wait…where the hell did that come from? My codex never mentioned they could have horns! Continuity FOUL!”
I say ‘eh’ to the horned Qunari. Looks like a pasty DnD Tiefling to me *which make AWESOME Warlocks, I must add. Have a level… 8 I think Tiefling Warlock named Tiguriafy. *Name suggested by my 4 year old niece**
My sentiments exactly! The qunari were so much better before. Even believable. Now I see them and it’s like I am looking at a Final Fantasy summon…
Woah, what?! That guy was supposed to be a Qunari? I thought he was some kind of abomination or male desire demon or something!
Are you aware that the first picture to pop up in a Google image search for Qunari is one you did of Sten?
I thought the same thing. I was like, “Oh man, this Hawke guy in the trailer is really roughing up Thailog.”
Hey! Disney gargoyles are cool enough to justify their horns!
My problem is that even if you try to explain Sten away as him being special what’s up with all the mercs? You must have killed dozens and dozens of nameless, hornless qunari mercenaries. Are they trying to tell me THOSE were special too?
Wait. The guy with the hammer in the cinematic destiny trailer was Qunari! I thought it was some kind of new bad-ass demon!
I’m both sad and disappointed by this news.
I don’t know what’s wrong with everyone else’s computers. The Qunari’s horns always showed up fine for me.
Tri-Force mug = Win
*puts dollar in Epic Jar*
Seen from the front, Sten’s hairstyle reminds me of Shepard Book from Firefly, with the exception of the episode where…. River Tam corrected his bible? I need another marathon.
Whaaaa, they’re gonna give them HORNS? But…But…They’re fine without them! Everything ELSE has horns…As you stated…
The first ones look a little like the daedric horns from Oblivion, but thicker…And obviously Draenic horns. My personal favorites are the ones in the last panel. How dose he hold his head up?
Actually, Sten won’t have horns added. Special Qunari who go among foreigners don’t have horns. The ones in DA2 are an exception.
And considering that qunari turn into ogres, it would be stranger if they didn’t have horns.
Not really, since elf darkspawn turn into werewolf monsters that don’t resemble elves in the least.
You naysayers… always saying nay! For shame!
Well I for one like the new direction in racial art directing that DA has taken! I like my Kossith with horns and my elves with freakishly big slightly insectoid eyes. While I will agree, the retcon was sloppy. The logic behind the change seems obvious to me. It’s a decision based on iconography.
I write this of course, with the advantage of actually having played the game, most of these comments having been made before it came out. DA2 is a very different beast then it’s predecessor, and while it is certainly far from a perfect game, it does a few things very right.
Its a game that is based on icons. The characters earnt really people, they’re sort of broad swept character tropes. Isabella is a little to slutty, Merrill a little to naive, Verric a little to smooth. Where the characters in DAO where very nuanced, the characters in DA2 aren’t… this is befitting to the game as it is a tale told by a scoundrel.
The changes to the art directing in the Kossith and the Elves reflect a similar logic. To fashion these peoples into more then just humans with a little flavor to them, they had to make them distinctive… larger then life. Iconic. So the Kossith got there horns, and the elves took on a bug like quality. And it ultimately aided the style and tone of the game.
That being said, the marketing department has kind of dropped the ball on this one. I think the best way to acknowledge it is to just be up front with you fans about the changes and not try some sloppy in continuity wave away for why the one cool Kossith didn’t have horns. (Really, seeing as the Qunari are a religion not a species wouldn’t it have been far easier to say that Sten is just a different species then these dudes? I mean I don’t recall him ever referring to himself as Kossith. Why couldn’t he just be a human who followed the Qun… actually… I’m sure there’s probably some reason why that wouldn’t work.)
I still really dislike what they did with the Kossith/Qunari in DA2 even after playing it. They felt like a completely different race than their DAO counterparts. More primitive, for one, which people have dismissed time and time again as “well they were shipwrecked, they lost all their upstanding equipment!” but I don’t really buy. The Qunari of the first game were very structured, advanced, and military, people, I feel like the time their DA2 counterparts spent painting fancy sunbursts on their torsos and finding pointy sticks, the original Qunari would have used to scour the Wounded Coast for new arms and armour. After all, if the first game taught us anything, it’s that all suits of armour are one-size-fits-all enough to fit dwarves, elves, humans, and Kossith.
If anything they just seemed like “Look, now we have generic horned, under-dressed beefy fantasy monster-men too!”
The Qunari in DA2 served there place in the story very well. They where sort of a fusion of Mohawks, and early Muslim expansion with a hint of Greek stoic philosophy. I was rather fond of them.
But I will agree with you, even with in the confines of DA2 they are portrayed as more technologically then Ferreldans and Kirkwelians, what with there super advanced poisons and explosives, but it didnt quite ring true. I mean, you can chock some of that up to the fact that they are basically a stranded military platoon, but that only goes so far.
What I would have really liked to have seen is Qunari engineers, something like that could have really brought another side to them as a people and a religion. Above and beyond ceiling them as being more technologically advanced then the rest of the world, it also would have made them that much more dynamic and thus, interesting.
If anything, they went the way they did to stick with the whole, “Lets make everything as iconic as possible” angle that they did with the second game. Maybe they could have chosen something less cliche then horns… I think I would have liked that if they did… but I am at a loss as to what else would have gotten that same effect.
I know I’m late to the party… but I really liked your contribution here… =)
Oh and just so we’re clear. Despite my opinion of the Qunari horns… this comic made me giggle like a little girl.
I know I am a bit late but I would like to clarify something. The Qunari are the people of the Qun, anyone can be a qunari if you fallow the Qun. The large horned creatures from DA2 are called Kossith, they make up the bulk of the Qunari. Some Kossith are born without horns which makes them highly valued as they can serve as missionaries and diplomats because people do not find their appearance monstrous. So DA2 was not a retcon, it just failed to clarify we were receiving new information.
No, I’m well aware of all that, Bioware just did a piss poor job executing their “we want to turn all the Qunari into Disney Gargoyles” bullshit.
Sorry if i sounded offensive that was not my intention at all and I apologize.
Cdr Badass seriously has the best mugs.
The comments here somewhat amuse me… on this page, that is…
The author complaining about Qunari now having horns. A few people complaining about lower of art quality. The author complaining about people complaining. Repeated references to Shrieks justifying Ogres.
All very novel. ^_^
But honestly… the impression I got regarding all that Qunari stuff….
One can get through the entirety of Dragon Age Origins without knowing anything about the Qunari. If one does as I do and brought Sten out of that cage only once for the achievement then left him to die on every subsequent playthrough… the total Qunari presence in the game drops to a few NPC thugs and some random (easily missable) merchant in Awakening. They could have been big, ugly humans for all I knew…
Qunari in Dragon Age 2 however play a MUCH bigger part. Second only to the mage / templar nonsense. I was surprised by their appearance at first too… but it didn’t take me long to get over it. I just thought to myself “so that is why ogres look like that”… and that was it. Accepted.
Heck, I prefer the new appearance…
… which is a funny thing to say since I hate the Qunari. Their new appearance is cool, but their mentality is anathema to me. Every time that Arishok opens his filthy mouth, everything that comes out makes me wonder why I have to wait two whole chapters of the game to kill him. He is worse than the Sten (it being a role, rather than a name… but whatever) in Origins… and I don’t have the option of just leaving him in a tiny cage and ignoring him.
Actually after reading the Dragon Age lore a bit. Qunari with horns are like people with normal hair colors were as no horns is akin to having red hair it’s just genetic. Sten was part of the Beresaad and sent to gather information human lands because he looked more like humans and I guess was less alarming to the people of Fereldan but we know how that turned out. Also among the Qunari having no horns is considered frightening or scary compared to people with horns and are often treated with a sort of reverence from respect and fear if you follow the comics “Sten” ends up becoming the new Arishok in the Bioware timeline.
On the other hand, before DA2 i had no idea Sten was a different race. I thought he was simply from a different country. I mean he looks human.